10 July 2007

Pronota awarded € 1.87M grant by Flanders Government to further develop its diagnostic biomarker discovery and validation platform

Ghent, Belgium; 10 July 2007 - Pronota NV, the Belgium-based predictive biomarker company, has announced that it has been awarded a € 1.87M grant from the Flanders Government to further develop its diagnostic and pharmacodiagnostic protein biomarker discovery and validation platform.

The grant will be used to expand the development of Pronota’s first generation biomarker discovery platform by building on its capability to identify low abundant serum protein biomarkers. In addition, Pronota plans to couple the discovery phase of the biomarker platform to a novel validation platform, making it possible to simultaneously assess the levels of a significant number of candidate biomarkers in large patient populations without the upfront requirement to generate antibodies and develop immunoassays. The remainder of the grant will be used to fund the execution of one of Pronota’s internal biomarker discovery programs. Commenting on the grant, Dr Koen Kas, Founder and CSO of Pronota said: "The capability to discover and rapidly validate highly specific and sensitive biomarkers will bring Pronota to the forefront of the global biomarker effort, and will increase its marketing position tremendously. This award, coupled with the recent appointment of a new Chairman and a Business Development Director, shows Pronota’s commitment to becoming a leading predictive biomarker company."

Pronota recently recruited John Berriman as Chairman and Huw Davies as Business Development Director.

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Notes to editors:

About Pronota

Pronota (formerly known as Peakadilly) is using its unique capabilities in exploring the proteomes of biological samples to build a portfolio of diagnostic products that work by analysing protein biomarkers in body fluids, typically blood. Some of these products will be designed to help detect disease at its early and most treatable stage, and others to determine the best treatment for individual patients.

Pronota’s core technology, MASStermind™, enables the comprehensive and rapid analysis of proteomes, allowing thousands of proteins to be identified per biological sample. With its unparalleled information content, Pronota’s proprietary technology platform dramatically improves the speed and success rate of protein biomarker discovery.

Pronota is also using this technology to support pharmaceutical and diagnostic companies in a wide range of contract R&D projects ranging from drug discovery through to development of pharmacodiagnostics. To date, the company has conducted projects in the areas of infectious disease, oncology and inflammation.

http://www.pronota.com

About IWT-Flanders

IWT is the Institute for the Promotion of Innovation by Science and Technology in Flanders. The organisation is the only Flemish organisation stimulating and supporting innovation. For this purpose IWT-Vlaanderen is applying two instruments.

On the one hand the organisation grants financial support to companies, research institutes as individual researchers. Companies are provided with financial support for executing industrial research and development projects. Special attention is given to SME’s due to their specific characteristics and needs. For them, there are attractive formulas called ’innovation studies and innovation projects’, with huge attention for administrative simplification. Research institutes (universities, high school, research centres) can apply for projects in strategic basic research, collective research and technology transfer.

On the other hand IWT promotes innovation by offering several services. IWT facilitates the search of enterprises for technological partners, as well in Flanders www.innovatienetwerk.be, as on European level throughout the IRC-network (www.iwt.be/irc). IWT can also accompany each applicant to one of the 100 innovation centres in Flanders, moreover helping to choose the most appropriate formula of support, including the measures of the European Commission, esp. the Sixth Framework Programme (www.vlaanderen.be/6kp) or the best instrument coping with their specific need of the firm.

Individual researchers can apply for support in their doctoral and postdoctoral (Master’s) research projects.

http://www.iwt.be/iwt_engels/