Inventors from Biacore nominated for European Inventor of the Year´ Awards

Underlying Biacore technology nominated for award from EPO and EC

28-Apr-2006

Biacore International AB announced that one of the patents for its underlying technology has been selected for the first ever European Inventor of the Year award. This new award is jointly organized by the European Commission and the European Patent Office (EPO). Biacore is one of only eighteen nominees in six different categories.

Biacore is being recognized for the 1990 patent in the names of Magnus Malmqvist, Robert Karlsson and Inger Rönnberg that lead to a breakthrough in interaction analysis by enabling real-time, label-free measurements of interactions utilizing the phenomenon of surface plasmon resonance (SPR). Biacore has used this breakthrough as the basis for a continually evolving range of protein interaction analysis systems that are used in primary biological research, the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries and in food manufacturing.

The core application enables anyone to look at a protein interacting with other molecules. These molecules could be other proteins or even small molecules such as pharmaceutical drugs or veterinary drug residues in food products. In the life sciences, for example, the information generated gives unique insights into protein functionality, disease and drug mechanisms and plays a key role in the critical decisions needed for efficient development and production of therapeutics. The analysis takes place on the gold surface of a sensor chip and this particular patent covers several aspects of how the gold surface is modified in order to watch these interactions.

Biacore´s patent is nominated with two others in the small and medium sized enterprises section of the awards. An international jury, chaired by former Netherlands prime minister Wim Kok, will choose the prizewinners in each category, on the basis of outstanding technical inventions for which the EPO granted a patent between 1990 and 2000. .

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