Business
Statement re: Patent
Statement re: Patent.
About this update from Proteome Sciences Plc
[{"type":"text","content":"\n \nPROTEOME SCIENCES plc\n\nPRESS RELEASE\n\nNotice of Intention to Grant European Patent on Isobaric Tandem Mass Tags® (TMT®)\n\n18th December 2006. Proteome Sciences plc (\"Proteome Sciences\") is pleased to\nannounce that the European Patent Office has today posted, in relation to Rule\n51(4), that the official Notice of Intention to Grant for its European patent\napplication in isobaric mass labelling for its tandem mass tags (TMT®) entitled\n\"Selective Acquisition of Mass Markers\" Serial No. 01911912.2 will be published\non 27th December, 2006. The Notice of Intention to Grant is the final stage of\npatent examination and represents the form in which the patent will be granted.\nIt is expected that the final issuance will be completed early in 2007. This\nfollows grants of the corresponding cases in Australia and New Zealand and of\nthe TMT2 product in Canada. The European Patent contains broad claims to\nisobaric mass tags - a class of small chemical reagents used to label proteins\n- and methods of their use.\n\nAs submitted, the allowed claims are not limited in respect of the level of\nmulti-plexing of the isobaric mass tags. At this time, Proteome Sciences\nconsiders that the most appropriate configurations to be duplex and six-plex\nsets of tags. The six-plex set of TMT® reagents contains six different isobaric\nmass tags that are used to label the proteins extracted from individual\nsamples. After labelling, the samples are mixed and the protein content and\nrelative abundance determined by mass spectrometry in a single experiment. This\nenables a significant increase in the throughput and accuracy of biomarker\ndiscovery without compromising the sensitivity of the individual results.\n\nIsobaric mass tags are a new field of technology and published data is not\nreadily available. Proteome Sciences estimates that isobaric mass tags already\naccount for around 50% of the current $10m to $20m per annum chemical tagging\nmarket and the market for these tags is growing disproportionately fast. Only\napproximately 50% of existing mass spectrometers (c. 25,000 units) are able to\nuse isobaric mass labels. Sales of new MS instruments, most of which can now\nuse isobaric mass tags, are forecast to at least double in the next five years.\nSpending on proteomics research tools is also forecast to grow at double digit\n...