Caliper Life Sciences and DiscoverX Collaborate to Offer Solutions for Cell-Based GPCR Profiling and Lead Optimization

Caliper Life Sciences, Inc. today 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 more efficiently 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. Through our collaboration with DiscoveRx, we have expanded our offerings to provide researchers with the ability to prosecute GPCR targets in a functional cellular assay for lead optimization and profiling,” said Kevin Hrusovsky, CEO of Caliper Life Sciences. “Caliper’s LabChip platform has become the new standard for kinase assays and we have broadened the platform to enable testing of phosphodiesterases, histone deacetylases (including sirtuins) proteases, phophatases and lipid modifying enzymes. The addition of cellular GPCR assays, which are a critical linkage in translational research, expands Caliper’s in vitro-in vivo bridge and should provide our customers with enhanced ability to make more informed decisions that ultimately lead to safer and more effective drugs.”

Caliper’s LabChip instruments—the LabChip 3000 and LabChip EZ Reader^® series—which have been adopted by 17 of the top 20 pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, 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. “Together, we are meeting the demand for GPCR and Kinase lead optimization and profiling.”