Caliper, DiscoveRx Offer Cell-Based GPCR Profiling

Caliper Life Sciences, Inc. announced a collaboration with DiscoveRx Corporation that enables functional cell-based G protein-coupled receptor (GPCR) assays from DiscoveRx to be performed on Caliper’s LabChip platforms. The combined offering bundles Caliper LabChip systems with DiscoveRx’s cellular assays, including PathHunter ß Arrestin and cAMP Hunter, to assist pharmaceutical and biotechnology researchers in discovering GPCR drugs.

“This collaboration will expand the capability of Caliper’s LabChip technology into the dynamic GPCR drug discovery market, an opportunity with substantial potential due to the importance of GPCR drugs and the number of active R&D programs in neuroscience, cardiovascular, inflammation, and other disease areas,” said Kevin Hrusovsky, CEO of Caliper Life Sciences.

Caliper’s LabChip instruments—the LabChip 3000 and LabChip EZ Reader series—utilize proprietary microfluidic separation and direct detection of both substrates and products to generate high quality results. This robust, easy-to-use platform, combined with DiscoveRx’s innovative ß-Galactosidase Enzyme Fragment Complementation (EFC) approach for cellular GPCR assays, should provide researchers with the ability to perform more clinically relevant cellular-based assays.

“PathHunter ß-Arrestin assays, HitHunter cAMP detection and now cAMP Hunter cell lines are all being successfully adopted by leading pharmaceutical companies in their GPCR screening campaigns. Our partnership with Caliper enables the use of these highly successful cell-based GPCR assays on Caliper’s microfluidic technology platform to provide a powerful and comprehensive suite of solutions for Caliper’s EZ Reader and kinase profiling customers,” said Pyare Khanna, CEO of DiscoveRx Corporation.

Release Date: May 5, 2008

DiscoveRx Inc. and Caliper Life Sciences