NEW YORK – Swedish proteomics firm Pixelgen said Thursday that it has signed a nonexclusive agreement with Japanese distributor BioStream for sales of its Molecular Pixelation single-cell spatial proteomics technology in that country.
BioStream will sell Pixelgen's Single Cell Spatial Proteomics Kit, Immunology Panel I, Human, the company's first product, which it launched in June 2023.
The product is intended for analyzing the quantity and distribution of cell surface proteins on single cells. It uses antibodies tagged with DNA to target specific cell surface proteins. Researchers then add so-called "DNA pixels" to colocalize proteins on the cell surface, followed by PCR amplification and sequencing, allowing them to study cell surface protein localization and clustering with high levels of multiplexing.
"With growing demand for our first product, this distribution agreement marks an important first step toward establishing a strong global distribution network," Pixelgen Chief Commercial Officer Annika Branting said in a statement. "We look forward to a successful collaboration with BioStream, and to offering easy access to our products across geographies."
"Pixelgen's novel approach to understanding the cell-surface proteome of single cells using NGS will enable a broad range of applications — from immunology to immunotherapy and hematology — to advance our customers' research," BioStream President Takeshi Iwabuchi said in a statement.
"Gaining a better understanding of the diversity of immune landscapes and responses is critical to developing personalized treatments for disease," Yutaka Suzuki, a professor in the department of computational biology and medical sciences at the University of Tokyo, said in a statement, adding that he plans to use Pixelgen's technology to study the surface proteome of peripheral blood mononuclear cells "to better understand why elderly individuals' responses to COVID vaccinations vary depending on whether or not they have undergone chemotherapy."