$6M boost to drive industrial-scale Proteomics facility in WA
- Belinda Hickman
- Jul 1
- 3 min read
Proteomics International (ASX: PIQ) will expand its Perth facility into a national diagnostics hub using a $6 million funding boost to develop a new protein biomarker analysis platform for industrial-scale precision medical and agricultural screening.
The company will partner with The University of Western Australia (UWA), the Western Australian Government and life science research collaborator BioPlatforms Australia to develop its world-class Perth facility. The partners want to target a growing market for high-throughput precision diagnostics across medicine and agriculture.
Proteomics and UWA will each kick $1 million into the kitty for the three-year project to develop an accredited protein biomarker analysis platform capable of helping push advances in the two critical sectors.
The Proteomics and UWA laboratories collaborate to bring together scientific and technological know-how to tease out the answers to everyday problems in health, agriculture and environmental sciences respectively, focusing on the emerging proteomics field.
Proteomics researchers work on identifying and measuring the changes in proteins within cells. Unlike DNA, proteins can change - studying them allows scientists to develop diagnostic tests that can detect diseases earlier and allow doctors to tailor treatments to their patients.
In agriculture, it could be used to guide grain selection or sowing decisions to improve yield and sustainability, for example. This may become particularly significant given the world’s growing population and drying climate, which means farmers must increasingly work to maximise yields while they safeguard crops against drought, salinity, weeds and pests.
This facility can become a national hub for precision diagnostic testing across clinical and agricultural proteomics. Extending our recent successful capital raise with state-of-the-art infrastructure to analyse thousands of samples at industrial scale, we can turn biological insight into real-world solutions - whether that’s improving outcomes for patients with chronic diseases or selecting better crop varieties to address food security.
Proteomics International Managing Director Dr Richard Lipscombe
Proteomics says achieving a new nationally accredited technology platform would significantly boost the facility’s capacity for fast and accurate screening, help roll out diagnostic tests for clinical use and enable it to test large sets of agricultural and environmental samples.
The centre will get new instrumentation for automated sampling and to set up advanced diagnostic workflows to drive innovation across industry, research and medical settings.
Proteomics already has an expanding arsenal of precision diagnostics targeting areas of unmet need, developed from its proteomics research and powered by its cutting-edge Promarker platform. The standard protein blood test is behind the company’s PromarkerD test for diabetic kidney disease, PromarkerEso test for oesophageal cancer and PromarkerEndo diagnostic for early-stage endometriosis.
The tests detect protein biomarkers in a patient’s blood and present the results as a universal “traffic light” risk score - low, moderate or high - to indicate their likelihood of having the disease.
Through a 66 per cent-owned subsidiary with UWA, Proteomics has also developed a revolutionary stress test to track muscle damage in elite athletes and thoroughbred racehorses.
Just yesterday, Proteomics announced it had achieved its milestone first patent in Japan for its simple PromarkerEndo blood test, and it is preparing for the product’s international commercial roll-out.
Japan is the world’s fourth-largest healthcare market, and already widely uses in vitro diagnostics and precision medicine to customise treatments for patients, deliver better patient outcomes and lower clinical costs.
The company completed a $12 million capital raise early last month, via a heavily oversubscribed share purchase plan, to drive development and accelerate the launch of its current four diagnostic tests.
The share raise came after Proteomics topped up its coffers in December last year, with a $2.16 million research and development grant delivered via the federal government’s tax incentive program. Management said the R&D grant would likely be directed towards accrediting testing at its United States laboratory.
With a suite of diagnostics in place and regulatory applications loaded in key international jurisdictions, Proteomics is stepping ever closer to unlocking some lucrative revenue streams, while also delivering potentially life-changing benefits for patients, clinicians and the agricultural industry.
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