Biotron R&D effort boosted by Waters deal

Instrumentation company Waters Australia will be assisting Canberra-based Biotron (ASX: BIT) in its CT-1 cancer biomarker project, according to details of a new collaboration.

Waters is a subsidiary of US-based Waters Corporation, and is a leading supplier of high-pressure liquid chromatography systems, thermal analysis and mass spectrometry products.

"The main thing they are providing in the collaborative agreement is that they will assist us with purification of the biomarker and elucidation of its structure," said Biotron business development manager Dr Michelle Miller. "It shows the level of interest in our research into CT-1."

Miller said CT-1 is a small non-protein molecule that disappeared when cancer was present. A diagnostic test based on CT-1 is currently undergoing clinical trials at the National Health Sciences Centre in Canberra.

Waters' expertise in liquid chromatography is expected to allow Biotron to simplify and optimise the CT-1 test. This should also allow the test to be released to market faster, the company said.

But Biotron also wants to find out the structure of CT-1 to assist with its development of the diagnostic test and as a potential target for anti-cancer therapeutics.

"We're spending a lot of time looking at what CT-1 is," Miller said.

She said that while the molecule had been elusive, added tech support from Waters would help the company to determine the structure of CT-1.