BioWorld International Correspondent

LONDON - Procognia Ltd. raised $23.5 million to finance the generation of protein function arrays for use in drug discovery, and agreed to an exclusive distribution agreement for the arrays with Sigma-Aldrich Corp., of St. Louis.

Chris Lyddon, chief financial officer, told BioWorld International the money will be used to set up a "factory-style operation" to generate new content for the protein arrays. The fund raising went hand-in-hand with the signing of the distribution agreement.

Procognia's technology allows it to create arrays of biologically related human proteins that retain their native functions. The first array to be developed contains the wild-type human p53 and germline SNP variants. The normal function of p53, of suppressing tumor growth, is reduced or lost through variations in its sequence, and Procognia said its array will be the first tool that enables investigations of the mechanism of cancer progression on many proteins in parallel.

Lyddon said arrays to be launched in the near future include proteins involved in cancer and signal transduction.

"All products going forward will be developed in collaboration with Sigma - we will work with them on which arrays to go for. Before we had our own agenda, but it is Sigma which is facing the market."

Terms of the exclusive relationship were not revealed.

David Harvey, chairman and CEO of Sigma, said the Procognia technology represented an advance over existing protein array technologies, which do not orient or confer functionality of proteins on the array.

"We feel [Procognia's technology] is the most innovative protein array technology available and the only technology that allows true functional analysis of proteins in parallel," he said.

Maidenhead-based Procognia was formed in April 2002 from an Israeli company, Glycodata Ltd. Since then it has raised $22.3 million, excluding the latest round, and brought in CEO Ron Long, who was formerly CEO of Amersham Pharmacia Biotech plc. In January 2003, Procognia acquired Sense Proteomic Ltd., of Cambridge, UK, the source of the protein array expertise.

Apax Partners Funds led the latest round, along with other existing investors Evergreen Partners and Koor CVC and new investor Star Ventures.

Procognia has some revenues from u. c. fingerprint, a system for analyzing glycosylation patterns of sugar chains surrounding proteins. As those chains modify the biological properties of proteins, their analysis is critical in discovery, development and manufacturing of protein drugs. Some of the new money will be spent on broadening the scope of u. c. fingerprint.

Lyddon said the latest funding should last two years, and, depending on how the market for protein arrays fares, should see the company through to profitability.