BioScale wins funding to develop protein analytics tech
ViBE enables sensitive, reproducible detection and quantitation of analytes in complex biological mixtures. To expand ViBE manufacturing operations and commercial sales BioScale has secured funding from a number of sources, with new investor Morningside Venture leading the financing.
“Morningside's participation, along with the strong support of our existing investors, positions BioScale well for our commercialisation phase”, said Mark Lundstrom, CEO of BioScale.
Applications for ViBE include the detection of impurities during biomanufacturing. BioScale believes ViBE can provide “precise, biologically relevant quantitation” during process development and production phases.
This can support companies’ compliance with US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) requirements for routine detection of process impurities in complex matrices. BioScale claims ViBE outperforms the existing gold standard for quantitative pictogram-level detection.
Further applications for ViBE include biomarker research, clinical immunogenicity monitoring, preclinical toxicology and diagnostic testing.
Isaac Cheng, managing director of Morningside, highlighted “the therapeutic and diagnostic potential of protein biomarkers”. Cheng said that BioScale’s “proteomics platform is well-positioned to become a leader in the protein measurement space”.
ViBE
ViBE allows users to create and configure their own assays using BioScale’s acoustic membrane microparticle (AMMP) technology. AMMP integrates micro electronic mechanical systems (MEMS) sensors, biological capture strategies and microparticles to detect analytes.
Piezoelectric materials are used to shake and sense a membrane at 20m times per second. Mass, such as an analyte complex, is added to the membrane using a biological capture agent, for example an antibody. This alters the resonance frequency of the membrane oscillations.
Microparticles are used to capture the analyte and minimise sample matrix interference. Analytes are then transported to the surface sensor, again using microparticles, leading to the production of a measurable signal.
