Akonni gets another $300K in NIH Funds to Develop Protein Arrays

According to an article in BioArray News (requires a free subscription to see the whole article):

Akonni Wins $300K NIH Grant to Move Its Dx Program Into Proteomics Arena

[September 30, 2008]

By Justin Petrone

Akonni Biosystems, a biotechnology company developing array-based tests for infectious diseases, recently won a $296,316 grant from the National Institutes of Health to steer its R&D work for the first time towards protein diagnostics, according to company officials.

Chief Scientific Officer Darrell Chandler told BioArray News last week that the grant, entitled “diagnostic protein array for respiratory infections,” is a “protein array project with the goal of being able to detect multiple pathogens in a single test.”

Chandler said that Akonni can use its TruArray platform for both protein and nucleic-acid applications, but that the NIH-funded development is “one of Akonni’s first forays into diagnostics based on a protein array approach.”

The grant brings the total NIH funds awarded to Akonni to $1.99 million. Chandler said that most of the funding helped to develop its diagnostics platform.

“The money is used in a couple of different ways,” he said. “On one hand it is used to develop specific chips or arrays from a commercial perspective; the second thing is to advance the overall platform so that arrays can be used at point-of-care or point-of-use.”

Founded in 2002, Frederick, Md.-based Akonni has set its sights on developing multiple tests for identifying pathogens that cause infectious disease. The firm’s test pipeline includes multiplex assays for detecting multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis; upper respiratory infections such as influenza A; and hospital acquired-infections like methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus.

Kevin Banks, a senior marketing consultant for Akonni, said that the company plans to seek US Food and Drug Administration clearance for one of its assays within the next two years. “Our long-term plans are to build diagnostic applications that have FDA clearance in the time frame of 2010,” he told BioArray News last week.

“Our platform is general-purpose but we have been fine tuning it for specific applications for some time,” said Banks. “We haven’t specifically selected the assay; we are looking at hospital-acquired disease and infectious-disease areas and we are trying to figure out which ones we want to take through that process.”