Label-free drug screening platform enters Japanese pharmaceutical market
CORNING, N.Y., Oct. 12 /Xinhua-PRNewswire/ -- Corning Incorporated (NYSE:GLW) on Oct 11, 2007 announced that Daiichi-Sankyo Co. Ltd. purchased the Corning(R) Epic(R) System for installation and integration into drug discovery operations at its Kasai Research & Development Center in Tokyo. Daiichi-Sankyo is a global pharmaceutical innovator and Japan's second-largest drug maker. This purchase marks the entry of Corning's microplate-based, label-free drug screening platform into the Japanese pharmaceutical market, following successful commercial launches in both North America and Europe.
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"Because it is based on Corning's strong heritage in photonics, materials science, and life sciences, we are convinced that the Epic System will significantly contribute to our drug screening efforts and enable Daiichi-Sankyo to achieve great success," said Dr. Hiroshi Yokota, general manager, Exploratory Research Laboratories I, Daiichi-Sankyo Co. Ltd.
"Given Daiichi-Sankyo's recognized leadership in the pharmaceutical industry, we are very pleased with their decision to integrate the Corning Epic System into their drug discovery operations," said Tom Lynch, business director, Corning Epic System. "Corning has established a team of local Epic field application and service personnel to provide a strong foundation of support for the growing customer base in Japan."
The Epic System is a high-throughput, label-free screening platform based on optical biosensor technology. The system performs both biochemical and cell-based drug discovery applications and offers drug developers the ability to evaluate promising new drug targets. It also enables the observation of direct biological interactions not previously detectable in high-throughput applications.
The system uses optical technology to eliminate the need for labels and consists of two components: a disposable 384-well microplate with integrated biosensors and a high-throughput screening (HTS) compatible microplate reader that permits screening of up to 40,000 wells in an eight-hour period. Because it makes use of an industry standard microplate format, the Epic System can be easily integrated with existing facilities and instrumentation.
For additional information on the Epic System, or any other Corning Life Sciences products, please contact a customer service representative at 1-800-492-1110, toll free in the United States, (+1) 978-442-2200 internationally, or visit http://www.corning.com/lifesciences .
About Corning Incorporated
Corning Incorporated ( http://www.corning.com ) is the world leader in specialty glass and ceramics. Drawing on more than 150 years of materials science and process engineering knowledge, Corning creates and makes keystone components that enable high-technology systems for consumer electronics, mobile emissions control, telecommunications and life sciences. Our products include glass substrates for LCD televisions, computer monitors and laptops; ceramic substrates and filters for mobile emission control systems; optical fiber, cable, hardware & equipment for telecommunications networks; optical biosensors for drug discovery; and other advanced optics and specialty glass solutions for a number of industries including semiconductor, aerospace, defense, astronomy and metrology.
ADDENDUM
Key Terminology:
High-throughput screening (HTS): Pharmaceutical companies generally have libraries of 500,000 to one million compounds. Therefore, to identify leads during the drug discovery process, researchers rely on high-throughput screening, or HTS. HTS is the use of miniaturized, robotics equipment to screen hundreds of thousands of compounds against a single target. Compounds that show a positive result go on to further testing.
Label-free drug screening: The Corning Epic System eliminates the need for fluorescent or radioactive labels that are often used in the detection of biomolecular interactions. The Epic System uses optical technology to directly measure the biomolecular interaction between a drug compound and a disease target without the use of labels. Eliminating the need for labels reduces the potential for erroneous results, saves time, and makes it possible to evaluate compounds that can not be labeled.
Optical biosensor: An optical biosensor is a sensing device that can be used to detect biological reactions. The Epic System uses an optical biosensor known as a resonant waveguide (RWG), which consists of a substrate with an optical grating and a coating with a high index of refraction. This grating forms an optical waveguide, a tiny channel through which a specific wavelength of light propagates. Only this wavelength that is resonant with the waveguide grating structure is strongly reflected. The other wavelengths are transmitted.
Biochemical and cell-based drug discovery applications: The Epic System detects changes in refractive index upon a binding event that takes place between immobilized targets on a sensor surface and analytes. Detecting these direct biomolecular interactions is referred to as biochemical applications. Example biochemical applications include antigen/antibody, drug/protease, drug/kinase, protein/DNA. In addition to these biochemical applications, the Epic System is also able to detect intracellular events that take place in cultured cells stimulated by a drug. Examples of these cell-based applications include G protein coupled receptors, epidermal growth factor receptors, and cytoskeleton modulations.
