Alexion forms Arradial Inc. to commercialize its desktop microarray assay technology
Alexion will become a minority equity shareholder in Arradial—which expects to close its seed round of venture capital financing in the fourth quarter of 2000—and will have the right to a seat on the company's board of directors. Alexion will grant the company an exclusive worldwide license to its microarray assay technology for all applications in return for a licensing fee. Alexion will retain all rights to the informatics and instrumentation technologies for the discovery and development of therapeutic antibodies.
At the National Conference of Biotechnology Ventures in San Francisco last week, Arradial co-founder, president, and CEO P. Thomas Vogel provided presented the company's microarray platform in a session highlighting post-genomic instrumentation. According to Vogel, the company has successfully demonstrated that ultra high-throughput antibody screening assays could be reproducibly performed with precision in nanoliter (billionth of a liter) volumes using silicon microwells. He also discussed Arradial's development of a novel re-arrayer device that universally couples macrodevices (microliter volumes) to microdevices (nanoliter volumes).
"Arradial is excited to be developing this desktop laboratory personal screening system—the 'LabPS'—to meet the growing needs of the drug discovery industry in the post genomic era," Vogel stated. "Arradial expects to capitalize on the fundamental discoveries and development of this device that came about through the collaboration between Alexion and Boston University." (The technology was co-invented by and co-developed with Allyn Hubbard and Samesh Kale in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering of Boston University, which will also become a minority equity shareholder in Arradial.)
About Arradial's technology
Arradial's LabPS system is a prototype microarray assay system that combines silicon chip technology with reaction site indexing to carry out ultra high-throughput drug screening and discovery. The system was designed to utilize a single, fully integrated device that couples fluidics and optics to achieve bioassay capabilities using fluorescence detection. The device utilizes simple robotics encompassing a linear arm moving with submicron precision over a rotating diskette. The simplified robotics allow for a compact engineering design on the desktop providing simplified operations, portability, and accuracy aimed at serving a variety of screening applications. The technology is expected to have applications in a variety of high-throughput screening systems, which target combinatorial antibody libraries, organic compound libraries, gene sequencing, gene expression, and pharmacogenomics.
Alexion is engaged in the discovery and development of therapeutic products aimed at treating patients with a wide array of severe disease states, including cardiovascular and autoimmune disorders, inflammation and cancer.
Arradial is an informatics and instrumentation company that applies diverse technologies in a novel format to meet the demanding needs of the pharmaceutical industry from gene-mapping to drug discovery.
For more information, contact Leonard Bell, president and CEO of Alexion Pharmaceuticals Inc., at 203-776-1790.
Edited by Jim Pomager
Assistant Editor, Drug Discovery Online