Upstate and Cisbio international Announce Launch of HTRF® KinEASE™

New kits for rapid kinase assay development mark second product collaboration between the two companies

Upstate USA, Inc., a subsidiary of Serologicals Corporation and the leader in innovative cell signaling products for life science research and drug discovery, and Cisbio international, a global developer of HTRF® technology and services used in assay development and drug screening, today announced the launch of exclusively co-developed HTRF® KinEASE™, a universal and sensitive assay for Serine/Threonine kinase screening. This new solution offers simplified kinase assay development, allowing for profiling and high-throughput screening (HTS) of a large range of Ser/Thr kinases, major targets in drug discovery.

HTRF® KinEASE™ combines KinEASE™ technology, proprietary antibody and kinase substrates developed by Upstate, with Cisbio’s proprietary homogeneous time resolved fluorescence (HTRF®) technology, a highly sensitive, robust technology for the detection of molecular interactions of proteins in vitro and widely used by the pharmaceutical industry for the HTS stage of drug development. The overall solution is monoclonal antibody based, and consists of three different kits which contain one antibody and one of three defined substrates, S1, S2 or S3. A fourth kit, HTRF® KinEASE™ Discovery, comprises one antibody and all three peptides, for any kinase assay development and optimization. Cisbio will be the exclusive provider of the HTRF® KinEASE™ platform worldwide.

Assay development with HTRF® KinEASE™ is straightforward and can be rapidly completed with results in less than two hours. The high sensitivity of HTRF® technology allows the assay to be performed with low consumption of kinase and substrates. Its common assay format is flexible and can be applied to a range of operating conditions. Over 70 different kinases provided by Upstate have already been validated with this new tool, and adaptation to any new kinase is extremely rapid. There is no limitation in ATP concentration, and it is easily miniaturizable to ≤10µL.

“HTRF® is one of the most widely used formats for HTS within the pharmaceutical industry due to its sensitivity and lack of compound interference,” said David Hayes, Director of R&D, Upstate. “Through our strong collaboration, what we have achieved with this product, HTRF® KinEASE™, is ease of use for our customers, one monoclonal antibody and 70 validated kinases with the potential to expand this product line beyond 100 kinases.”

“HTRF® KinEASE™ combines the performance of HTRF® technology with Upstate’s expertise in kinases and the reliability and precision of detection by a universal monoclonal antibody,” said François Degorce, head of HTRF® marketing and business development, Cisbio international. “When a customer buys one of the validated enzymes, he can be sure that the combination of this enzyme with HTRF® KinEASE™ works. This reliability reinforces our partnership with Upstate and benefits our customers, and is testimony to Cisbio’s dedication to both.”

The launch of HTRF® KinEASE™ marks the second product development collaboration between Upstate and Cisbio international, following the joint development of an HTRF® PI-3-kinase assay which is now marketed by Upstate. This collaboration also reinforces the position which Cisbio’s proprietary HTRF® technology holds in HTS and the drug discovery industry, specifically in the area of kinase activity, in addition to Cisbio’s strength in GPCR screening.