Bionomics in technology partnership with PerkinElmer

Adelaide epilepsy specialist Bionomics (ASX:BNO) has announced a yin-yang collaboration with international drug-discovery, life-science research and analytical solutions company PerkinElmer.

It's PerkinElmer's second such partnership in Australia in recent times, after it named Sydney company Minomic as its Asia-Pacific proteomics partner last year.

In return for acting as a reference site for potential Asian customers for PerkinElmer's ImageTrak cellular-imaging platform for screening central nervous system (CNS) drugs, Bionomics will apply Image-Trak to its own search for novel anti-epileptic and anxiolytic compounds.

According to the companies' joint announcement, Bionomics and PerkinElmer will collaborate to evaluate and optimise new reagents to explore the function of ion channels and G-coupled protein receptors (GPCRs) and their response to drugs.

Bionomics' vice-president of business development, Francis Placanica, said Bionomics would be the only site in Australia or New Zealand with IonTrak.

The high-throughput system uses ion-activated fluorescent dyes and optical fibres to visualise and measure ion fluxes through nerve-cell ion channels, and to observe how candidate drug molecules affect such flows.

Various forms of epilepsy, many involving inherited mutations in ion-channel genes, affect about 3 per cent of Australia's population, and the global market for anti-epileptic drugs is estimated at more than $US6 billion, according to Bionmics. It said the market for anti-anxiety drugs (anxiolytics) was even larger, affecting around 9.7 per cent of the population, with the global market for anti-anxiolytics estimated at $US14.5 billion.

Bionomics' IonX technology involves a transgenic mouse model of absence epilepsy in humans, and cellular assays involving mutant and normal ion channels.