IN Cell Analyzer 6000 is expected to bolster use of high-content assays.

Odyssey Thera has installed GE Healthcare’s IN Cell Analyzer 6000, a laser-based confocal imaging platform to advance its high-content assay capability. Odyssey Thera is leveraging systems biology to decipher biologically relevant pathways in human cells. The firm’s cell-based technologies include protein-fragment complementation assays (PCAs) that allow protein-protein complexes to be precisely imaged and localized within live cells.

Using PCA and other technologies, Odyssey says that it has created the largest high-content assay capability. Fully integrated hardware, software, and IT infrastructure enables very high throughput, creating a systems- and chemical-biology platform capable of capturing and analyzing hundreds of thousands of microscopic images per day, the company adds.

The IN Cell Analyzer 6000 employs a unique optical engine combined with a next-generation sCMOS detector to support high-throughput and high-resolution imaging of diverse biological events. In contrast to conventional fixed aperture confocal systems, the IN Cell Analyzer 6000 optical system features a fully adjustable variable aperture for increased flexibility.

“The IN Cell 6000 is designed for the most demanding high-content cellular applications including live-cell assays, 3-D imaging, co-localization studies, and imaging of assays with low signal,” remarks John K. Westwick, Ph.D., president and CEO of Odyssey Thera. “The choice of GE Healthcare’s IN Cell 6000 reflects Odyssey’s goal of maintaining our leadership position in highly contextual cellular analysis.”

Jane E. Lamerdin, Ph.D., executive director of R&D at Odyssey Thera, says, “The Odyssey team will use the IN Cell 6000 for multiple projects including advancement of partner drug discovery programs and collaborative work with the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), in which methods are being developed to improve detection of environmental toxicants.”

Most recently, in March 2010, Lonza signed on to provide Odyssey’s PCA technology to researchers as part of its compound-profiling services. Additionally, Odyssey Thera granted Lonza an option to certain exclusive, global technology licenses. The companies have also initiated collaborative technology, product development, and marketing activities. In May 2009, Odyssey entered a collaboration to analyze Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma’s preclinical drug candidates using its PCA technology. 

Prior to 2008, Odyssey had inked partnerships with the likes of Abbott, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Merck & Co., Pfizer, and Roche. The company has reported most on progress made in the Pfizer collaboration. The latest update was that the firms had published a paper in PNAS describing a the use of Odyssey’s platform for optimizing Pfizer’s PAK inhibitor anticancer agent called PF-3758309.

Back in October 2009 Odyssey reported on the achievement of a milestone fee from Pfizer following Pfizer’s decision to progress drug candidates studied by Odyssey Thera as part of their multiyear alliance intiated in August 2006. Those milestones were reportedly the company’s fourth and fifth to be earned.

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