It was on August 20, 2015, that Caprotec Bioanalytics, GmbH proclaimed issue of patent by United States Patent Office (No. US 9,034,789) entitled “Capture Compounds, Collections Thereof and Methods for Analyzing the Proteome and Complex Compositions” on ground-breaking Capture Compound Mass Spectrometry (CCMS) technology. Caprotec, founded in 2007 by serial entrepreneur Prof. Hubert Koester is based in Berlin and the newly granted patent to this company harmonizes the company’s patent assortment of more than 40 issued patents in countries including the European Union, Canada, Australia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan, Israel and India. The company’s investors encompass a jumble of private and institutional organizations including Creathor Venture, IBB Beteiligungsgesellschaft (VC Fond Berlin), LBBW Venture Capital, KfW (ERP Startfonds) and prominent business people from the life sciences communities. The main target of the company is commercialization of its proprietary CCMS technology in the areas of chemical proteomics, drug development, development of protein biomarkers and repositioning of marketed drugs and drugs under development.
CCMS, is considered as one of the leading technologies in chemical proteomics and serves as a platform technology to investigate any small molecule (e.g. drug candidate) protein interactions irrespective of the structure or the biological origin of the sample. This technology serves to identify interacting proteins in samples including from cell lysates, tissue homogenates, sub-cellular fractions/organelles to living cells ranging from bacteria, plants, insects, animals and humans. The technology also aids in identification of membrane proteins such as ion channels, receptor tyrosine kinases and GPCRs. The underlining feature of CCMS embraces investigation of small molecule interactions with intracellular proteins in living cells and identification as well as isolation of circulating tumor cells and protein biomarkers. The latter application is considered as imperative for patient stratification to identify responders and non-responders to a given drug treatment. The equitable nature of CCMS process directly leads to drug-specific functional sub-proteome analysis regardless of the nature of complex biological samples. Profiling of small molecule drug – protein interactions in the human proteome to discover protein drug targets (target deconvolution) and the mode of drug action is also an important application of CCMS technology ensuing to a phenotypic screen.
Caprotec’s CCMS is based on trifunctional Capture Compounds®, which enable isolation and identification of proteins based on their specific interactions with small molecules. This protein interactor fingerprint defines the mechanism of action of such small molecules and has the potential to discover proteins responsible for adverse effects. The key features of technology include proprietary work flow, nil requirement of solid matrix in solution application, specificity control, covalent crosslinking for high sensitivity and delivery of a ranked short list of specific protein interactors for any small molecule. Capture Compounds® are not only useful for isolation and identification of targets, but also grant particular information on the location of binding sites on target proteins, and can be used for pharmacological and other studies for target validation, selection and optimization of chemistries in drug discovery.
Dr. Hubert Koester, founder and Managing Director/CEO of Caprotec Bioanalytics GmbH states, “This is a significant milestone in achieving global patent protection of the company’s CCMS proteome analysis technology” and “The unique advantages of the CCMS platform, including the discovery of specific protein interactors for any small molecule and the deconvoluting of targets for mechanism of action or toxicity in all tissues, enables drug development companies to make earlier and more effective data driven decisions for optimization and lead selection.”
The technology has been authenticated in all fields of application and has gained description in the form of experimental details in many peer-reviewed scientific publications and its exceptional potentials have been corroborated through numerous research collaborations with the pharmaceutical and agrochemical industry. Furthermore, with an aim of imparting significant contribution to scientific society, the company is actively involved in research collaborations with various pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical companies applying CCMS technology along with the drug development process.
