KineMed, a California biomarker test developer with IPO plans, is joining a consortium that will create a standard mouse model focused on diagnosis and tracking of early-onset diabetes.
Financial details aren't being discussed. But KineMed essentially signed on to a multiparty project conceived of by TNO, a Netherlands-based research group. The two-year initiative has a goal of perfecting early spotting of diabetic complications in a mouse model that would mimic human conditions. Typically, researchers develop a unique animal model for every diabetes complication, KineMed said, so the new concept should help speed to market new diagnostics and treatments.
Beyond KineMed, the collaboration includes the University Medical Center Utrecht and the Radboud Proteomics Center in the Netherlands, BaseClear B.V. and Good Biomarker Sciences (two Netherlands-based companies) and Seventh Wave Laboratories.
Among other things, KineMed will bring its expertise on kinetic biomarkers to the table, an element intended to bring rate-based biomarkers into the final diabetes diagnostic model. The company also has biology expertise and will give feedback on the viability of the diabetes models under consideration.
KineMed announced plans in early January 2014 for a $51 million IPO and filed updated paperwork with the SEC for its proposed prospectus on April 3. The company's claim to fame is a "proprietary biomarker platform" technology designed for use in both drug development and medical diagnostics.
Emeryville-based KineMed has also caught the eye of some significant biotech partners. In October, for example, drug developer Amgen ($AMGN) tapped KineMed's mass spectrometry-powered proteomic platform to track neurodegenerative biomarkers. That effort, in theory, will help Amgen develop drugs to address the root causes of neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's, targeting biomarkers such as pathogenic proteins in the brain that contribute to neurodegeneration.
- read the release
- here's KineMed's revised S-1 filing