HILLSBORO, Ore. and ILLKIRCH, France, March 21, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- FEI (NASDAQ:FEIC) and NovAliX, a contract research organization (CRO), announced today a strategic partnership to enable NovAliX to provide commercial cryo-electron microscopy (EM)-based structural analysis services to its customers in the pharmaceutical and biotech industry. NovAliX has integrated a cryo-EM workflow based on a transmission electron microscope (TEM). The collaboration combines application, training, and support with on-site personnel from FEI.
“There is a growing demand for structural studies from the pharmaceutical industry, driven by the need for a deeper scientific understanding, and also because of stronger regulatory constraints. In the field of biologics, EM analysis has proven to be capable of delivering critical information for antibody selection, epitope mapping and formulation. As for small molecules research programs, cryo-EM can be uniquely valuable to obtain structural information on multi-protein complexes or membrane proteins, which is key to understanding the structure-function relationship,” said Denis Zeyer, CEO, NovAliX.
TEM-based structural analysis has emerged as an important complementary technique to traditional methods, such as X-ray crystallography and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR). Although TEM lacks the atomic-scale resolution of those techniques, it can look at a broader range of structures under conditions much closer to the native intracellular environment.
Zeyer added, “During the latest NovAliX conference, we have witnessed the interest and the relevance of biophysical tools in drug discovery. So, this new offering will nicely complement our structural biology and biophysical platform that includes X-ray, NMR, surface plasmon resonance (SPR) and native mass spectrometry (native MS). Now with cryo-EM available, NovAliX scientists are able to deliver critical insights into the biology of protein complexes. Indeed, we will be able to fit X-ray structural results of individual proteins with a global structural view of the complex obtained by cryo-EM, which is otherwise not easily accessible.“
Peter Fruhstorfer, vice president and general manager of FEI’s Life Sciences Business states, “We are extremely pleased to be able to work with a leading contract research organization like NovAliX. The power and value of cryo-EM based structural analysis is evident from the quality of recent publications by academic and industry researchers. This collaboration with NovAliX is an important step in the broader commercialization and industrialization of the technology.”
For more information about FEI’s cryo-EM solutions for biology, please visit: http://www.fei.com/life-sciences/structural-biology/.
About NovAliX
NovAliX is a privately-owned organization providing expert driven outsourcing and insourcing research services for drug discovery. Core expertize includes synthetic organic chemistry expertise, FBDD and SBDD. The comprehensive portfolio of biophysical and analytical technologies include: chemical microarray SPR, native MS, NMR, Biacore, ITC as well as strong structural biology expertise based on x-ray crystallography and electron microscopy. More information can be found at: www.novalix-pharma.com.
NovAliX Conference 2016: Biophysics in Drug Discovery. More information can be found at http://bit.ly/1RcuaHk.
About FEI
FEI Company (Nasdaq:FEIC) designs, manufactures and supports a broad range of high-performance microscopy workflow solutions that provide images and answers at the micro-, nano- and picometer scales. Its innovation and leadership enable customers in industry and science to increase productivity and make breakthrough discoveries. Headquartered in Hillsboro, Ore., USA, FEI has over 2,800 employees and sales and service operations in more than 50 countries around the world. More information can be found at: www.fei.com.
FEI Safe Harbor Statement
This news release contains forward-looking statements that include statements regarding the performance capabilities and benefits of cryo-EM and the related workflows. Factors that could affect these forward-looking statements include but are not limited to our ability to manufacture, ship, deliver and install the tools, solutions or software as expected; failure of the product or technology to perform as expected; unexpected technology problems and challenges; changes to the technology; the inability of FEI, its suppliers or project partners to make the technological advances required for the technology to achieve anticipated results; and the inability of the customer to deploy the tools or develop and deploy the expected new applications, including the combination of cyro-EM into other workflows. Please also refer to our Form 10-K, Forms 10-Q, Forms 8-K and other filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for additional information on these factors and other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from the forward-looking statements. FEI assumes no duty to update forward-looking statements.