The University of Pennsylvania has co-founded and structured BluePen Biomarkers in collaboration with BluePrint Bio, Inc. and Emerald Logic, Inc. to conduct biomarker research and identification.  BluePen is creating a comprehensive biomarker measurement and discovery pipeline for the acceleration of personalized medicine.

BluePen will collaborate with Ian Blair, PhD, the A.N. Richards Professor of Systems Pharmacology and Translational Therapeutics and Director of Center for Cancer Pharmacology in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.

“This is innovation at its core – a results-focused collaboration of academics, private industry, and research partners around the world dedicated to improving upon existing knowledge of biomarkers through a ‘big science’ approach,” said Michael Poisel, the Penn Center for Innovation’s Director of PCI Ventures.

BluePen will measure and integrate genomic, proteomic, metabolomic, and lipidomic biomarkers, alongside clinical data, demographics, and other phenotypic data, providing its customers and collaborators with access to a comprehensive ‘multi-omics’ discoveryplatform. With this collaborative venture, Penn’s goal is to radically improve and accelerate the discovery of relevant biomarkers, without bias toward single genes, single modalities, or inappropriate mathematical assumptions.

“Our fundamental conviction is that any intervention that has a predictable biologic outcome will have a detectable biomarker signature,” said Blair. “The challenge is to detect the signature.  BluePen’s comprehensive multi-omics platform married to Emerald Logic’s bio-inspired signal processing analytic approach provides a powerful solution.”

Matthew Nunez, CEO of BluePen has focused on the creation of a network of collaborative clinical and research institutions that can contribute biofluid samples and patient data, further augmenting the value of the platform. “Our goal at BluePen is to help bridge biologic discoveries to clinical purpose,” he stated. “We have been working with researchers in oncology, inflammatory diseases, neurological disorders, and a variety of other areas of interest, to identify and validate discoveries that can mitigate human suffering while decreasing treatment costs.”

"The BluePen Biomarkers partnerships illustrate how creative collaboration enables discoveries in academic research to translate into medical advances," said Dawn Bonnell, PhD, vice provost for research at the University of Pennsylvania.

About The Penn Center for Innovation

The Penn Center for Innovation (PCI) translates Penn discoveries and ideas into new products and businesses for the benefit of society by facilitating connections with the private sector. Whether the end result is a technology license, an R&D alliance, the formation of a new venture, or an integrated combination of these activities, PCI serves as a dedicated one-stop shop for commercial partnering with Penn.

About PCI Ventures

PCI Ventures is a division of the Penn Center for Innovation (PCI) and provides entrepreneurial support products and services for faculty, staff, and students at the University of Pennsylvania who have an interest in starting a new venture. Over the last six years, PCI Ventures has built numerous operating companies through its support programs, including UPstart, UPadvisors, AppitUP, and DevelUPmed.

About Blueprint Bio

Blueprint was founded to generate and transform intellectual property into commercial and social value, fulfilling the personalized medicine model.  By identifying, protecting and offering new biological discoveries to existing clinical, pharmaceutical and diagnostic companies, Blueprint Bio is creating a validated marketplace for biomarkers signatures in personalized medicine.  In order to de-risk and accelerate biomarker discovery, Blueprint is actively collaborating with the researchers and companies who are generating biologic patient data from ‘omics devices such as mass spectrometers and sequencing machines, among other assay methods, at an unprecedented rate.  Blueprint is based in California, with additional offices at the University of Pennsylvania and the Mayo Clinic.

About Emerald Logic

Emerald Logic has created the world’s only integrated ‘omics precision analytics platform.  The company’s mission is to make personalized medicine a reality, in order to reduce patient suffering, treatment costs, and drug development risk. Emerald’s bio-inspired signal processing technology is proven to solve problems impossible for other methods, by modeling the underlying biology of disease regardless of the number or complexity of available biomarkers, lab assessments, clinical history, and demographics. The company’s body of work includes diagnostics and prognostics for a wide variety of cancers, inflammatory diseases, neurological disorders, cardiac health, and addiction. The company’s customers include major pharma, renowned clinics, and world-class research institutions.