Caprotec Secures €4M to Further Capture Compound Mass Spec Platform

CCMS reportedly isolates and captures proteins based on functionality, directly from complex mixtures.

Caprotec bioanalytics raised €4 million (roughly $4.98 million) in a Series B round of financing with existing and private investors. The firm will use the proceeds to develop and market its Capture Compound Mass Spectrometry (CCMS) platform for analyzing complex protein mixtures.

In particular, the funds will support development of new caproKits™ for the isolation of functionally selected protein classes from protein mixtures and to develop the firm’s ImproMed™ application for profiling drug-protein interactions.

Caprotec’s CCMS technology uses small synthetic trifunctional molecules, known as Capture Compounds™  to target, capture, and isolate proteins based on their functionality, directly from complex biological mixtures. The Capture Compounds thus comprise a selectivity function to target the predefined protein type, a reactivity function to covalently bind the protein target, and a sorting function to pull the Capture Compound protein complex directly out of cell lysates.

The CCMS process can thus essentially be described as a homogeneous reverse HTS, the firm explains. The covalent bond used to capture proteins also means the CCMS technology can be used to isolate even weakly binding proteins and is suitable for use with membrane proteins, Caprotec adds.

The company is commercializing its technology through the development of caproKit for research applications and through contract research and collaboratorative projects in drug discovery. Seven caproKits are now available commercially. In January Caprotec launched its latest three kits for the discovery, identification, and characterization of metallo-proteases, histon-deacetylases, and GDP/GTP binding proteins. The three new kits are Marimastat caproKit, SAHA caproKit, and GDP caproKit, respectively.

Based in Berlin, caprotec opened its Burlington, MA-based subsidiary in November 2009. The U.S. unit has responsibility for North American sales, marketing, and support of the CCMS technology and related products.