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May 17, 2002
Prolinx, Inc. Awarded Frost & Sullivan 2002
Technology Innovation Award
Bothell, WA,- Prolinx®, Inc. announced today
that the company has been selected to receive the 2002
Market Engineering Technology Innovation Award by Frost
& Sullivan for its Versalinx Protein Microarray
Technology. Frost & Sullivan, an international strategic
market consulting and training firm founded in 1961,
presents these awards to companies that demonstrate
the diligence, perseverance, and dedication required
to develop a successful business plan and excel in the
increasingly competitive global marketplace. Protein
arrays, also known as protein biochips, are a collection
of discrete protein or peptide spots on a solid surface,
each of which represents an individual assay. The use
of protein arrays is a rapid and cost effective method
for screening a large number of samples for proteomics
and drug discovery research applications and represents
an emerging growth market.
Protein arrays, analogous to DNA arrays used widely
in genomics applications, represent a technological
challenge for researchers due to the fact that proteins
and peptides are fragile and vary widely in structure
and function. Versalinx Protein Microarray Technology
is a universal, open-platform protein or peptide array
system based on the Prolinx Versalinx synthetic small
molecule, affinity chemistry. Versalinx technology provides
the robust and highly stable surface chemistry that
overcomes the challenges presented by protein arrays,
enabling development of sensitive protein biochips.
Advantages include: individual array elements may be
optimized to maximize performance of each individual
protein or peptide yielding high signal-to-noise ratios,
uniform spot morphology and signal intensities with
fewer assay steps. The technology is fully compatible
with existing automated techniques and systems, resulting
in increased efficiency and reduced potential for human
error. Prolinx released the Versalinx Protein Microarray
product line in late 2001.
The Frost & Sullivan Engineering Award for Technology
Innovation was awarded to Prolinx, Inc. for the development
of an enabling technology that addresses a significant
challenge in the protein array marketplace. This award
recognizes the ability of the company to successfully
develop and introduce new technology, formulate a well-designed
product family, and make significant product performance
contributions to the industry. The award resulted from
an analyst team research project on emerging and existing
technologies and R&D developments. This project
involved interviews with major market participants and
extensive secondary research. Also considered were elements
such as product launches, customer acceptance, penetration
rates and time to market.
"The protein array market has been restrained
due to technical challenges inherent in maintaining
full function following protein immobilization,"
stated Eric Gay, industry analyst "The Versalinx
Protein Microarray technology is a powerful tool in
not only this respect, but also in enabling the immobilization
and instantaneous optimization of proteins with distinct
chemistries on the same surface. We anticipate rapid
market penetration for this technology in a market where
the ability to define content is paramount."
"Receiving the Frost & Sullivan Award for
Technology Innovation is a great honor for Prolinx,"
commented Jim Mahoney, President & CEO. "The
extraordinary focus, high standard of technical excellence,
creativity and dedication of the entire Prolinx team
allowed us to bring this enabling technology to market
very quickly. The team continues to innovate and will
continue to introduce new products focused on the emerging
proteomics market."
Prolinx, founded in 1995, is a privately held biotechnology
company located north of Seattle, Washington, USA. The
company develops, manufactures, and markets chemistry
based tools, applications, and systems that advance
developments in bioresearch, biotechnology and drug
discovery. The company has commercialized a number of
proprietary technologies including: Versalinx Chemical
Affinity Tools, a synthetic chemical affinity technology
targeted at the proteomics and genomics markets; Versalinx
Protein Microarray Technology, a novel open platform
array system specifically designed to enable developments
in the emerging protein and peptide chip market; and
RapXtract Superparamagnetic Separation Technology for
the purification of fluorescent labeling reactions used
in sequencing and microarray applications. The company
is also developing instrumentation for label-free molecular
interaction analysis based upon advances in surface
plasmon resonance technology. The first instrument,
the Octave Molecular Interaction Analysis System, will
be released in 2002.
Prolinx is a registered trademark, and Octave, and
Versalinx are trademarks, of Prolinx, Inc.
Contact:
Leslie Linkkila
Director, Sales & Marketing
Prolinx, Inc.
22322 20th Ave SE Bothell, WA 98021
Phone: 425-487-3401
Fax: 425-487-9578
Email: leslie.linkkila@prolinx.com
Web: www.prolinx.com
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