The combination of Qiagen's Qproteome products with Procognia's on-chip glycoanalysis technology creates guided fractionation solutions
Qiagen has obtained an exclusive license from Procognia to market and sell Procognia's proprietary on-chip protein glycoanalysis technology.
The company believes the new products based on Procognia's technology to be an excellent enhancement of its successfully launched QProteome protein fractionation product line, which addresses a range of different applications in life science research, including drug development and clinical research.
Procognia's on-chip glycoanalysis products consist of lectin chips and analytical software developed and manufactured by Procognia.
These products will be combined with a selection of Qiagen's QProteome product line to create novel, guided fractionation solutions which should address previously unmet needs in proteomics and systems biology.
Qiagen believes that this novel protein glycoanalysis technology addresses a previously unmet need for the preparation and understanding of proteins in the rapidly emerging field of glycomics.
In January 2005, Qiagen began in protein sample preparation with the launch of its QProteome product line.
This new offering integrates state-of-the-art technologies into the broadest portfolio of consumable products for the fractionation, enrichment and depletion of target protein classes.
A significant number of protein classes (fractions) are differentiated from each other by modifications incurred during protein synthesis.
One such modification is the addition of highly variable oligosaccharide chains (glycans).
Today, a significant area of research is focused on these glycosylated proteins (glycomics) as glycosylation influences folding, function, specificity and activity of a protein.
Procognia's technology creates a new dimension in differentiation of the glycosylation patterns of proteins and thereby allows further sub-fractionation of the target proteins, providing significantly higher resolution than previously possible.
The agreement announced today significantly expands the leadership of the QProteome line with exclusive access to Procognia's novel and proprietary on-chip glycoanalysis technology for glycosylated proteins.
By combining this technology with its QProteome product line, Qiagen offers a solution which for the first time enables the customer to quickly standardise and optimise their glycomic sample workflow with easy to use consumables.
"By integrating Procognia's on-chip glycoanalysis into our Qproteome line, we are creating novel guided-fractionation solutions for the exciting field of glycomics", said Peer Schatz, Qiagen's chief executive officer.
"We expect this technology to significantly accelerate Qiagen's leadership in pre-analytical solutions in this rapidly growing area of proteomics".
"We are pleased that Qiagen has chosen Procognia as its commercial partner", said Ron Long, chairman and CEO of Procognia.
"Combining Procognia's novel glycoanalysis with Qiagen's existing QProteome product lines will lead to significant advances in protein science."
