NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – Antibody company Affomix today announced a collaboration with the University of Montreal Pharmacogenomics Centre and the Montreal Heart Institute to develop companion diagnostic biomarkers for cardiovascular disease.
Under the agreement, the financial terms of which were not disclosed, Affomix and the PGx Centre will partner to develop reagents for the quantitative profiling of candidate biomarkers in a multiplex manner. The PGx Centre has identified a panel of proteins it believes may be predictive of patient response to novel anti-atherosclerotic agents.
In a statement, Jean-Claude Tardif, director of the Research Center at the Montreal Heart Institute, said, "Having the ability to consistently measure these cardiovascular proteins represents a key first step in identifying important biomarkers that will help us better understand atherosclerosis and how patients respond to certain medications."
Based in Branford, Conn., Affomix develops monoclonal antibodies using its proprietary technology, called Y2H Express, that it says improves upon traditional yeast two-hybrid technology in terms of antibody specificity.
In January, Affomix and the City of Hope announced a collaboration to determine the clinical use of "digital proteomics" using next-generation sequencing. In December, it signed an agreement with Kalgene Pharmaceuticals to select antibodies with potential diagnostic and therapeutic use in breast cancer.