A Medical Device Daily

Singulex (Alameda, California) a developer of high-definition immunodiagnostic technology, reported that the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office has issued two patents related to the company's Erenna technology, for the quantitative measurement of single molecules in complex biological samples.

The patented technology enables the Erenna immunoassay system to integrate single molecule counting into microparticle-based immunoassays that dramatically improve assay sensitivity.

U.S. patent 7,572,640 covers the flow system methods applied in the Erenna Technology, which enable monitoring of very low abundance biomarkers, as well as confer the ability to interrogate these biomarkers to discover their relationship in human disease.

The sensitivity of the Erenna immunoassay system allows discovery around previously intractable disease biology and enables an understanding of complex biomarker associations. Pharmaceutical and biotechnology partners are using the Erenna immunoassay system in their therapeutic programs to better understand the efficacy, safety and pharmacokinetics of therapeutics.

A second U.S. patent, 7,838,250, issued to Singulex covers the measurement of Cardiac Troponin-I (cTnI) at low abundance concentrations.

In other patent news: Cell Biosciences (Santa Clara, California) reported the issuance of Patent No. 7,846,676 for “Methods and Devices for Analyte Detection“ by the USPTO.

The patent represents a key element of intellectual property related to NanoPro assay technology. It is one of several within a family directed towards the detection of specific proteins in complex biological samples.

NanoPro assay technology is used by premier researchers in the fields of cancer research, stem cell biology, diabetes and drug development to characterize proteins in extremely small and precious samples, enabling accelerated development of new therapeutics and identification of new prognostic and diagnostic disease biomarkers.