 The ability to conduct high-quality, high-volume re-search in the biotechnology revolution will be vital for those companies that want to get ahead. Based in Uppsala, Sweden, Biacore International AB is facili-tating this need by provid-ing pharmaceutical com-panies with one of the most advanced drug discovery research tools in the world. |
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“We are the world’s leading provider of surface plasmon resonance (SPR) based biosensor systems,” explains Biacore’s President Ulf Jönsson. “Our success is based on the ability of our SPR biosensor technology to provide high-quality, real-time data of biomolecular interactions.” says Jönsson. “SPR is the only technology that allows real-time observation of molecular interactions. This allows researchers to have access to high-quality data on key parameters such as affinities and molecular kinetics, confident that the results they have generated have not been influenced by factors such as biochemical labelling, something which is required when conventional techniques are used.” Jönsson describes the origins of a company that had a revenue of SEK 438.8 million (USD 40.9 million) last year. A multi-disciplinary platform “The seeds of Biacore International began in 1984 when it was a subsidiary of Pharmacia. In order to develop SPR technology, which is a multidiscipli-nary platform, Pharmacia worked with, amongst others, the Swedish Defence Agency. A total investment of USD 50 million USD was invested in SPR technology before Biacore broke-even in 1994. Biacore was estab- lished as a separate entity and listed on the Stockholm Stock Exchange and Nasdaq in 1996.” Biacore’s major customers are currently the world’s leading academic life science research centres. However we are generating more and more of our sales from large pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies as our technology has gained increasing recognition as a key tool in the on-going biotechnology revolution. Position as technology supplier In 1999, Biacore decided to place greater strategic emphasis on deve-loping its position as technology supplier to the drug discovery market. This decision was taken because this market is a perfect area for the com-pany to capitalize on its SPR technology – given that the technology has the ability to dramatically improve the economics of the development of new medicines. Biacore’s has strong patents on its technology and this is one of the factors that gave it an unassailable position within drug discovery. “We fiercely defend our patents. A US court recently granted a permanent injunction preventing a US company from infringing one of Biacore’s patents covering the surface chemistry on the sensor chips and awarded damages in favor of Biacore.”. Teamed up with key players To further develop its presence in the drug discovery market, Biacore has teamed up with a number of key players in the drug discovery industry including Millennium Pharmaceuticals in the USA, one of the biggest biotech companies in the world. Jönsson explains the reasons behind a three-year partnership focusing on the development of Biacore’s unique SPR array technology, “We chose Millennium because it is one of the most respected biotech companies in the world. It is a fully integrated drug development company at the forefront of accessing cutting edge technol-ogies like ours. We see it as a perfect first partner to help us develop this key technology platform.” ”Biacore®3000 is currently our most successful system,” added Jönsson. High-throughput screening “Biacore®3000 is used upstream in the drug discovery process to find the most appropriate targets for high-throughput screening. In order to expand our offering to the drug discovery market we are about to launch the first of our high performance systems, the Biacore®S51 which is designed for use downstream of high-throughput screening, to better characterise potential pharmaceutical products. Target discovery and lead characterization are two key bottlenecks in the drug discovery process. Biacore is able to dramatically improve the economics of drug discovery by allowing researchers to make better decisions at these key development points thereby saving a lot of the pharmaceutical dollars that are wasted by investing in the wrong targets or the wrong lead drug candidates.” “Our novel SPR array chip technology is set to revolutionize bioscience research because it allows greater throughput in proteomics (the science of studying protein characteristics). SPR array chip has the potential to increase 1,000-fold the number of binding assays that can be performed per day. It’s all about increasing the research capacity at the pharma-ceutical companies’ disposal. Simply, better quality research means that the drugs have a greater chance of reaching the market,” explains Jönsson. An exciting future Jönsson concludes by stating that he believes that Biacore has an exciting future based on SPR technology’s ability to play a key role as the biotech-nology revolution gains momentum. The company’s novel SPR array technology in particular should enable Biacore to become a major player in proteomics, an increasingly important focus for life science researchers in both academic and pharmaceutical/biotechnology companies worldwide. Proteomics is expected to help lead to many of the new medicines of the future. “Our share price increased by 451% in 2000 as investors became more aware of the importance of our technology to the on-going biotechnology revolution. We are confident that we will continue to grow at an attractive rate given the real benefits that our technology provides to our key customers in the pharma /biotech industries. In particular the high-throughput benefits that will come from our new SPR array systems will dramatically increase the potential applications for our technology once they reach the market, most probably in 2004.” Nicholas Mead |
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