ProCognia (Israel) Ltd. (TASE:PRCG) has signed a memorandum of understanding with a multinational company to market its glycoanalysis product for testing sugar molecular structures on proteins in drugs. The company believes that a final contract will be signed in 3-4 months.
Procognia's share rose 10.8% today to NIS 0.94, giving a market cap of NIS 20 million.
Procognia currently has about NIS 3 million in annual sales of its Glycoscope through direct sales. The Glycoscope is used by pharmaceutical companies for research, planning, and control of production processes of drugs, especially biological drugs.
Procognia estimates the glycoanalysis market at pharmaceutical companies at several tens of millions of dollars, and that it is one of industry leaders. Procognia president and CEO Alon Natanson said that the international company had ties with many pharmaceutical companies worldwide, and that it could greatly boost Procognia's Glycoscope sales. The usual division of revenue in similar deals in the sector is for the manufacturer (Procognia in this case) to get 40-50% of the sale proceeds.
In a presentation to the capital market yesterday, Natanson said that Procognia had three core businesses. The sale of glycoanalysis services is the company's "bread and butter", and the company already has initial sales. However, this is a fairly small market, and is insufficient for financial survival.
On the basis of glycoanalysis, Procognia has developed a number of blood tests, which can differentiate between cancer cells and healthy cells on the basis of differences in the sugar molecules' structure.
This ability to identify cancer cells is the foundation for Procognia has identified the sugar structures in lung cancer cells, and has found at the Tel Aviv University's library of antibodies the antibody that can selectively find these cancer cells.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on January 27, 2010
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