NEW YORK, Feb. 19 - Ciphergen Biosystems has gained a toehold in China after it sold its ProteinChip systems to hospitals, universities, and government agencies in that country, the company said on Tuesday.
Ciphergen has also established a formal relationship with the Universities Confederated Institute for Proteomics, which the Chinese government established in May 2001.
"The Chinese government has publicly stated that it intends to foster proteomics research and China is therefore potentially a very significant market for Ciphergen," William E. Rich, president and CEO of the Fremont, Calif.-based company, said in a statement.
Dacheng He, chief scientist and deputy director of UCIP, commented that he is "optimistic" that his group will be able to discover "a number of protein biomarkers that will be useful as predictive diagnostics, as well as providing insights into disease pathways."
Ciphergen's ProteinChip system is designed to be used for protein discovery, characterization, and assay development.