US$12.9M infectious disease biomarker research contract for Montreal biotech firm

Montreal, QC – Caprion Proteomics says it has been awarded a $12.9 million contract by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), a part of the US National Institutes of Health, to carry out biodefense research in the area of infectious disease biomarkers.

Under the contract to be performed over a five-year period, Caprion will act as one of two NIAID clinical proteomics centres for infectious disease and biodefense, and will use its quantitative protein profiling technologies to perform several large-scale applied proteomics projects using human clinical samples from patients with infectious diseases. The projects will be aimed at the discovery, qualification, and verification of candidate biomarkers with potential for clinical use to improve detection and diagnosis and to monitor therapeutic and vaccine responses and susceptibility to infection for diseases caused by various pathogens.

“We are very pleased to be granted the opportunity to expand our infectious disease research program with NIAID into the area of clinical biomarker discovery and validation,” said Martin LeBlanc, president and CEO at Caprion.

This is the second major biodefense research contract awarded to Caprion by NIAID, with an earlier contract awarded in 2004 and still in progress.