RxCelerate Acquires Methuselah Health & Launches ProQuant World-Beating Proteomics Service

RxCelerate recently announced the acquisition of drug discovery company Methuselah Health UK Ltd for an undisclosed sum. Methuselah Health was founded in 2015 to discover drugs for age-related diseases driven by proteomic instability and has developed the world’s most powerful proteomics platform to power its discovery efforts.

“Until now, the ProQuant proteomics technology has only been available for the internal discovery programs at Methuselah Health,” said Jill Reckless, CEO at RxCelerate. “But as soon as we saw just how powerful this technology was, we had to add it to our service offering. Through this acquisition, the proprietary ProQuant platform will be exclusively available to our clients, giving them access to the best proteomics technology available anywhere.”

The development of ProQuant was led by David Mosedale, Chief Technical Officer at Methuselah Health since its foundation in 2015. “Proteomics has been an important tool in drug discovery for decades, but existing methods typically focus on the number of proteins identified at the expense of quantitative accuracy. ProQuant is a step-change in quantitative accuracy for bottom-up LC-MS-MS-based proteomics, which enables a whole range of applications that are difficult or impossible with existing technology. For example, ProQuant can better quantify post-translational modifications, including proteolytic cleavages, in complex protein mixtures, which opens up a new domain for target identification and validation, biomarker discovery and reaction monitoring.”

ProQuant moves the goalposts for proteomics through proprietary improvements in both the analytical and bioinformatic domains. “The key development,” says Mosedale, “was identifying a way to assess quantitative accuracy across the whole proteome simultaneously, even without knowing the true concentration of any of the components. That allowed us to optimize the methodology beyond anything that has been possible before.”

ProQuant has numerous applications across the drug discovery and development domains. It turbo-charges chemoproteomics during discovery of covalent binders (including protacs), allows the accumulation of post-translational modifications on biologic drugs to be accurately monitored during manufacture, storage and, most importantly, after administration in vivo, and delivers accurate quantitation of protein labelling.

“Unfortunately, many drug developers do not realise the extent to which the poor quantitative accuracy of traditional proteomics has limited its usefulness. ProQuant really is a game-changer,” explains Mosedale.

“Over the last several years, we have acquired or developed a unique toolkit of cutting-edge technologies to improve drug discovery and development,” said Nick Tait, Chief Financial Officer at RxCelerate. “Galaxy, our platform to discover better monoclonal antibody drugs at RxBiologics, and RxNfinity, our dynamic chemical space to improve small molecule discovery, deliver best-in-class capabilities to our clients.  With the acquisition of Methuselah Health and its ProQuant proteomics technology, we have taken another step towards our vision of making the best technologies out there available to everyone.”

RxCelerate is an out-sourced drug discovery and development company, founded in Cambridge, UK, in 2013, with a focus on working smarter. It has grown rapidly to become one of the leading providers of drug development services in the United Kingdom. RxCelerate operates a unique model, providing capabilities to discover and develop drugs for clients, designing as well as executing every aspect of the research and development plan.

RxCelerate offers a wide range of services. The biology team specializes in in vivo pharmacology, offering proprietary models of wide range of human diseases, as well as complex cell-based assays. The chemistry team provides medicinal chemistry, including in silico screening and the RxNfinity dynamic chemical space, as well as synthesis that integrates seamlessly with the in vitro testing capability. A dedicated team designs the optimum discovery or development strategy for each project, as well as integrated program management. By working closely together, these teams can deliver pharma-grade drug product candidates at a fraction of the cost of traditional approaches.

RxCelerate has a team of more than 80 employees and consultants based in 25,000 square feet of premium laboratory and office space in the Dorothy Hodgkin Building at the Babraham Research Campus, approximately five miles south of Cambridge, UK, as well as offices in Boston, MA, and San Francisco, CA. For more information, visit  rxcelerate.com.