Crystal-clear collaboration: Qiagen, ActiveSight team up

VENLO, The Netherlands—Qiagenhas entered into a protein crystallography co-marketing agreement with ActiveSight

Jeffrey Bouley
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VENLO, The Netherlands—Qiagen N.V., a provider of preanalytical sample preparation products enabling genetic and protein analysis, has entered into a co-marketing agreement related to protein crystallography for drug discovery with San Diego-based ActiveSight, a protein crystallography service provider. Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.
 
"The bundling of Qiagen's sample preparation standards with ActiveSight's advanced service offerings creates an advantage for researchers who need structural analysis, X-ray analysis and 3-D structure resolution of their protein crystals," says Jean-Pascal Viola, director of protein crystallization for Qiagen.
 
The deal between Qiagen and ActiveSight is important because it will help make structure determination more accessible and successful for drug discovery researchers and others, says Dr. Duncan McRee, president of ActiveSight. Qiagen has been a leader in finding innovative ways to use crystallization reagents for this purpose, he says, which is a key reason his company teamed up with Qiagen.
 
Qiagen boasted an extensive line of standardized reagents and kits before the deal with ActiveSight, Viola notes. But now researchers can have a relatively seamless way to make use of Qiagen products for work on genes and protein crystals, he notes. Crystal analysis and structure resolution can then be performed at ActiveSight, using their equipment for structural determination. ActiveSight will also offer protein crystallization setup using Qiagen reagents.
 
According to Qiagen, protein crystallography is the most frequently used process to determine the three-dimensional structure of proteins for structure-based drug design, functional analysis and structural genomics. "And by thoroughly analyzing the structure of proteins, drug discovery scientists can better discover new drugs that will effectively treat the diseases they are meant to target," notes Viola.
 
Qiagen has built a "leadership position" in protein sample preparation in large part by combining innovation with strategic partnerships such as the one with ActiveSight, according to Peer Schatz, Qiagen's CEO. "We are demonstrating significant success in innovating, partnering and acquiring and are in a strong position to address attractive opportunities in research, clinical research, molecular diagnostics and applied markets," he says.
 
ActiveSight is also keen on seeking out partnerships. A month before the Qiagen deal, ActiveSight signed a protein crystallography agreement with Novo Nordisk. Details of the agreement were not released, except for Dr. Ronald V. Swanson, CSO for ActiveSight, commenting that his company looks forward to supplying Novo Nordisk scientists with structural information to accelerate their discovery efforts. 

Jeffrey Bouley

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