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For Immediate Release, May 15, 2001 Integrative
Proteomics™ Completes The scientific team at Integrative Proteomics, Inc.™ revealed today a first look at the molecular world of protein function and structure that underlies infectious disease. The Company’s knowledge of infectious disease proteins can be used as molecular shape templates to accelerate the design of new medicines. Toronto, Ontario (May 15, 2001) – Integrative Proteomics, Inc.™ (IPI), a leader in the rapid determination of protein function and structure for accelerating the discovery of new medicines, announced today that IPI scientists recently completed a first pass interrogation of proteins responsible for intracellular functions in staphylococcus, a major disease bacterium. Dr. Aled Edwards, Chief Scientist at IPI, said of IPI’s accomplishment, “The recent completion of various genome sequencing projects only quantifies our ignorance of biology and its relevance to medicine. Even in bacteria, science has yet to discover the functions of over 60 percent of the proteins. Our scientists have used a proprietary integrated platform of mass spectrometry, X-ray crystallography and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) to derive not only structural information, but also functional information about these proteins and how they interact with one another. Our analysis represents the first step toward reconstructing the inner workings of a bacterium in order to understand how to make better antibacterial drugs. We can now leverage our ability to analyze function and structure on genome-scale projects in other therapeutic areas, including viral and human diseases." To accomplish this recent project, IPI rapidly analyzed over 1700 genes and manufactured nearly a thousand different bacterial proteins in sufficient quantity and quality to interrogate their function and structure. IPI has reconstructed a functional network of proteins and identified hundreds of proteins that interact or ‘talk’ to one another. In addition, the Company initiated the determination of the three dimensional structure of these proteins. These synergistic efforts have already permitted the Company to assign functions and three-dimensional structures to proteins previously unknown as drug discovery targets. Dr. John Mendlein, Chairman and CEO of Integrative Proteomics™, Inc. stated, “Infectious diseases represent a major health threat in the U.S. and around the world. Although the enabling technology used for discovering medicines is much faster than ten years ago, drug discovery still remains slow, particularly for anti-bacterial and anti-viral treatments. Bacteria have thousands of different proteins, yet the industry continues to focus on only about to 20 proteins as ‘targets’ for medicines. Because most of these targets were found by serendipity, relatively few insights have developed on new ways of treating infections. Meanwhile the bacteria have figured this out and continue to get smarter by developing resistance to current treatments. Our technology advances have enabled our small scientific team to start to reveal the molecular world of protein function and structure that underlies infectious disease. To our knowledge, we have examined more potential bacterial targets in detail at the protein level than any company, pharmaceutical or biotech. Our first pass interrogation allows us to visualize large sectors of a disease-causing bacterium’s genome to accelerate the assessment of the therapeutic relevance of a target and its druggability. Because we have information on the detailed shape of disease targets, we can create a molecular template for designing new medicines to attack the disease target and kill the bacteria. As the pharmaceutical industry evolves, we believe our efficient target-based approaches to drug discovery will complement the disease-oriented approach typically used in large pharmaceutical companies.” IPI accelerates the discovery of new medicines using its Pharmaceutical Proteomics™‘ Platform. Using leading structural proteomics technologies, the Company is building the world’s first integrated, industrial platform for high-throughput pharmaceutical target function/structure interrogation using X-ray, NMR and mass spectrometry technologies from Bruker AXS, Bruker BioSpin and Bruker Daltonics (NASDAQ: BDAL), respectively. Each Bruker company plans to make a strategic equity investment in Integrative Proteomics™. The Company is also integrating into its Pharmaceutical Proteomics™ Platform the premier discovery capabilities of Aurora Biosciences (NASDAQ: ABSC) to enhance IPI’s drug discovery efforts. Aurora will screen IPI targets to generate 3-5 million data points as well as granting a license for Aurora technology to interrogate pharmaceutical target classes. Aurora will also make an equity investment in IPI. The Company’s ProteoWorks‘ Platform for rapid, parallel production of recombinant proteins from bioinformatic databases uses proprietary protein expression and purification processes based on the Company’s advances in molecular biology and mass spectrometry that eliminate many of the bottlenecks associated with conventional protein production systems. IPI’s ProteoActive‘ Platform monitors protein-protein interactions using a proprietary mass spectrometry system, which compiles functional information in a proprietary database to assess the function and therapeutic relevance of proteins in a cellular context. The Company’s ProteoVision‘ Platform uses proprietary NMR and X-ray crystallography systems to accelerate the determination of protein structure to guide small molecule design and library selection, hit selection and lead optimization. IPI has 45 employees, 70 percent with advanced degrees. The Company is located in Toronto, Canada and plans to open a U.S. site. IPI’s investors include the Canadian based venture firm of CC Capital Partners, Eastern Technology Seed Investment Fund and Lombard Odier of Switzerland. For more information, please contact: Integrative
Proteomics, Inc. Contact:
Dr. Joanne E. Harack
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