BellBrook Labs Accelerates Product Development through Federal Grants and In-licensing
BellBrook Labs was awarded two federal grant awards totaling more than $800,000 for further development of their proprietary Transcreenerâ„¢ high throughput screening platform. A Phase II SBIR grant was awarded by the National Cancer Institute for improvements and extensions of the company’s top-selling product, the Transcreenerâ„¢ Kinase Assay, which is on pace to surpass revenue projections within the first year of launch. A Phase I SBIR grant was awarded by the National Institute of Neurodegenerative Disorders and Stroke for extension of the Transcreenerâ„¢ platform into a new family of drug targets, namely methyltransferases.
Inhibition of specific methyltransferases with small molecule drugs is thought to be an underutilized strategy for treatment of neurodegenerative disorders like Parkinson’s disease and Alzheimer’s disease. The planned Bellbrook assays will accelerate identification and optimization of highly selective drugs targeting methyltransferases.
Improvements to the Transcreenerâ„¢ Kinase Assay funded by the grant from NCI will include formatting the assay for another detection mode in order to broaden its market appeal. To accelerate these efforts, BellBrook recently signed an agreement with Invitrogen Corporation, to license their LanthaScreen detection reagents. Invitrogen is a major provider of innovative research products whose drug discovery products division is headquartered in Madison, WI. Bob Lowery, BellBrook’s president, and CEO explained, “Providing an assay in different detection formats is essentially meeting customers’ preferences for different flavors. The first generation Transcreenerâ„¢ Kinase Assay incorporated one of the two predominant detection formats used in HTS. Licensing LanthaScreen from Invitrogen allows us to convert Transcreenerâ„¢ to the other major format using reagents that have already been extensively validated in the marketplace.”
BellBrook Labs develops high throughput screening tools that accelerate the discovery of more effective therapies for a broad range of diseases. The company was founded in May of 2002, and has been capitalized through a combination of federal grants, a loan from the WI Department of Commerce, and a private equity financing. The company is located in the University Research Park and currently employs 13 people.
Contact us at 866.313.7881 or info@bellbrooklabs.com.
Biology at Work
