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The first step in the journey from imprecise drug therapy to precision medicine - REPO4EU’s Euro / Global Platform for Drug Repurposing

Neckargemünd, 9th August, 2022

 

The biotechnology company Sciomics GmbH, located in Neckargemünd, Germany, today announced its participation in an ambitious joint initiative selected and granted almost €23M by the European Commission as part of the Horizon Europe Programme.

REPO4EU’s ultimate goal is to build and grow an industry-level European online platform for validated precision drug repurposing with a global reach. This platform will operate as the go-to data hub for key information, training resources, matchmaking and cooperation in drug repurposing.

The platform will provide extensive expertise throughout the whole value chain in drug repurposing: from freedom-to-operate analysis to intellectual property protection and business development, health technology assessment, ethics and data governance considerations.  

During the next 7 years, 28 partners from 10 countries (The Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Spain, Sweden, Romania, Belgium, Portugal, Switzerland and the United States) will join forces to make REPO4EU a reality and create a unique platform for drug repurposing, pooling stakeholders and expertise at a global stage to create a “made in Europe”, fully-fledged infrastructure for drug repurposing. Sciomics will contribute to the initiative with its expertise and scioDiscover platform for protein biomarker discovery and verification as well as disease mechanism elucidation.

 

Drug repurposing 

But what exactly is drug repurposing? To answer this question, there is first a need to address the elephant in the room: to this day, we still rely on 19th century disease definitions – often named after specific organs, symptoms or even doctors –, when it has become painfully obvious that trying to compartmentalize the human body into small, completely isolated parts with no connection to one another is an extremely naïve endeavour.  

The truth is that our disease definitions are no longer valid – and the end of medicine as we know it is quickly approaching.  

Even though we have witnessed an exponential increase in the volume of drug discovery investments since the 80s, overall efficacy has stagnated in the pharmaceutical sector – there is currently no way of differentiating between patients who will benefit and those who will not, and unwanted side effects cannot be predicted reliably.  

The reason? There is a conceptual problem in how we define diseases and, consequently, in the way we currently approach drug development. Most underlying disease mechanisms are not understood and are thus rather treated symptomatically in an imprecise manner. 

 

Systems Medicine is organ-agnostic 

This philosophy lies at the core of what we call systems medicine: the ambition to map the full network of human diseases – the so-called diseasome – to unravel the hidden connections between mechanistically similar diseases. In the diseasome, diseases appear in clusters, indicating a common genetic origin through shared risk genes. These clusters radically change what we call a disease: now, the underlying causal molecular mechanism becomes our disease definition.

It all comes down to a very simple thought: if we can understand the underlying mechanisms that govern a specific disease, surely, we can repurpose drugs for another disease that shares some of those common elements?  

The answer is yes! Mechanism-based drug repurposing will revolutionize the way we approach drugs – it will help us find new uses for already registered drugs, increase precision and radically cut down on costs and time in the drug development process – jumping straight into clinical trials that are small, precise, innovatively designed and compliant with the highest safety and operational excellence standards.  

 

Curing diseases with high precision 

Chronic diseases are only chronic because we do not know how to cure them yet. REPO4EU’s organ-agnostic approach will push drug repurposing to its full potential by mixing Big Data, Artificial Intelligence-driven bioinformatics and Network Science with advanced cheminformatics to redefine diseases in a mechanism-based manner and repurpose drugs beyond their original target. 

REPO4EU will thereby unlock unprecedented breakthroughs in precision, efficacy and cost-effectiveness, de-risking drug repurposing and paving the way towards personalized therapies and ultimately, precision medicine.  

A resource for researchers, companies, healthcare providers, payers, and patients 

Whether you need to secure bioinformatics support for an unmet medical need, explore a registered compound or a specific mechanism; assess your freedom to operate, outline a patenting strategy or browse regulatory advice; liaise with a business partner, locate a clinical trial test site for phase I-III or craft a business plan... we have the experts and the experience to help you! 

RExPO22 - The 1st International Conference on Drug Repurposing 

REPO4EU will officially start this September, and what better way to kick things off than with a high-profile conference? We are delighted to present RExPO22, the very first instalment in our RExPO series of international conferences on drug repurposing.  

Networking has always been the prime focus of any scientific and business event and this one is both: high impact science and innovative business. Come join us September 2nd-3rd at Maastricht for two days of vibrant keynotes from world-renowned experts and busy discussion around the future of drug repurposing! 

 

Key contacts 

Coordinator: Prof. Dr. Harald HHW Schmidt, Maastricht University, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Sciomics: Dr. Christoph Schröder, Sciomics GmbH, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Communication: Diana Lopez, AUSTRALO, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.  

Project management office: Miriam Simon, concentris, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

 

More Information:

REPO4EU initiative: https://repo4.eu
R
ExPO22 conference: https://repo4.eu/rexpo22-conference/ cropped repo4eu header 1 1

Our service portfolio

scioPhospho: protein profiling and phosphorylation status

scioPhospho: protein profiling and phosphorylation status

scioPhospho combines the advantages of a robust and cost-efficient protein expression profiling using scioDiscover with information on phosphorylation status. This combination provides a comprehensive overview on signalling events and pathway activity regulation. Features 1,300 highly relevant proteins are profiled in a single assay Phosphorylation status combined with protein expression levels…
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scioDiscover - Protein Profiling on expression level

scioDiscover - Protein Profiling on expression level

Knowledge about protein expression levels is of utmost importance to predict toxic effects, estimate adverse effects of drug candidates and to identify new drug targets. Sciomics has a highly optimised…
scioCD - Cell surface marker and Cytokine profiling

scioCD - Cell surface marker and Cytokine profiling

  Characterise a certain cell type?   Cell composition in a certain tissue sample?   In-depth profiling of CD-marker expression?   Increase your throughput at high sensitivity levels? You aim…
scioUbi

scioUbi

Protein & ubiquitination profiling scioUbi is a high-content protein expression and ubiquitination level analysis. With scioUbi you can analyse up to 1,000 proteins in a single assay.   Features Screen…
scioCyto : Cytokine profiling

scioCyto : Cytokine profiling

scioCyto : Cytokine profiling scioCyto is a high-content analysis service for multiplex cytokine and chemokine profiling on protein level. A great variety of samples such as plasma, tissue, cells or…

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News

New article | Prevention of Cyclosp.-A mediated anemia and peritubular loss

| June 2022 | In a study by Robert Labes et al. insights in prevention of cyclosporine mediated anemia and peritubular capillary loss were identified.

Labes, R. et al. Daprodust. prevents cyclosp.-A mediated anemia and peritubular capillary loss. Kidney International 2022 in press.
New article | The Lifestyle Modifications Affect the Endometrial Proteome

| June 2022 | In a study by D. Abdulkhalikova et al. Endometrial Proteome changes werde identified impacted by Lifestyle modification in woman with Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome and Obesity.

Abdulkhalikova, DR. et al. The Lifestyle Modifications and Endometrial Proteome Changes of Women With Polycystic Ovary Syndrome and Obesity. Front. Endocrinol. 2022 in press.
New article | Cycle-dependent biomarkers in endometriosis

| May 2022 | In a study by Maja Pušić et al. Cycle-dependent plasma protein biomarkers for peritoneal endometriosis were identified by our scioDiscover platform.

Pušić, M. et al. Antibody Arrays Identified Cycle-Dependent Plasma Biomarker Candidates of Peritoneal Endometriosis. J. Pers. Med. 202212, 852.
New article | Co-Expression of microRNAs and Proteins in Alzheimer’s Disease

| Jan 2022 | In a study by Valentina di Pietro at Birmingham University our scioDoiscover platform was used to analyse the co-expression of proteins and microRNAs in the brains of Alzheimer's disease patients.

Watson, C. N. et al. Co-Expression Analysis of microRNAs and Proteins in Brain of Alzheimer’s Disease Patients. Cells 11, 163 (2022).
New article | ETV6 levels predict outcome in DLBCL

| Jan 2022 | Erich Piovan and collegues at University of Padua collaborated with Sciomics to study specific biomarkers in FFPE tissue samples of DLBCL patients by custom antibody microarrays.

Marino, D. et al. High ETV6 Levels Support Aggressive B Lymphoma Cell Survival and Predict Poor Outcome in Diffuse Large B-Cell Lymphoma Patients. Cancers 14, (2022).

Testimonials

Dr. Bettina Grötsch

Department of Medicine 3 - Rheumatology and Immunology, University Clinics Erlangen, Erlangen, Germany

"Our lab is working with human osteoclast that were isolated and differentiated from human peripheral blood. Therefore, we were quite limited in cell numbers and protein content for our planned Phosphoprotein analyses. Nonetheless, Sciomics and especially Camille Lowy helped us a lot to test and improve our protein isolation techniques to achieve some interesting phosphoproteome data in human osteoclasts. We were really impressed by the detailed data report and their willingness to discuss and reanalyze the data repeatedly until we got the best results out of our measurements. Even several month after their first report, we could ask for help and suggestions with an immediate reply.  The phosphoproteome analyses completed our preliminary project data and are now published in Frontiers Immunology.  Altogether, we were very happy with the service of Sciomics and special thanks to Camille Lowy and Christoph Schröder who guided us through the whole process."

Product: scioPhospho
Publication: Grötsch B. et al. 2022 Front. Immunol. 13:958974 

Alenka Djarmila Behsen, PhD candidate

Department of Clinical and Molecular Medicine, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway

"The process of working with Ronny and his colleagues at Sciomics has been very easy and efficient. Response time is very quick and they are always available for meetings when you have more questions. Would definitely recommend working with Sciomics."

Product: scioCD

 

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