SiDMAP Collaboration Leads to Discovery of Novel Biomarker for Early Detection the Metabolic Syndrome.

LOS ANGELES -- SiDMAP, LLC, a provider of metabolic profiling and biomarker development services to the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries, announced today the discovery of an early metabolic marker for detecting the emergence of metabolic syndrome in patients taking certain anti-psychotic medications, and potentially, in the general population. The emergence of the metabolic syndrome previously linked to the long term use of certain anti-psychotic medications may now be determined long before any current means of detection, using a new biomarker discovered using SiDMAP's proprietary metabolic profiling platform.

SiDMAP will present results of a series of metabolomics studies performed in collaboration with Zoltan Sarnyai, M.D., Ph.D. of the Department of Pharmacology at the University of Cambridge, U.K. during the poster session at the Metabolic Society's 3rd Annual Conference. The Conference will take place on June 11-14, 2007 in Manchester, U.K.

The chronic and acute effects of three anti-psychotic drugs, haloperidol, clozapine and fluvoxamine, were analyzed in an in vivo study performed on CFLP mice. Using [U -13C6]-D-Glucose as the tracer and applying the SiDMAP technology, tissue and serum samples were tested. It was determined that 13C labeled glucose fractions in plasma were increased due to delayed absorption and increased futile cycling by 1.39 and 3.15 fold (haloperidol) and 2.17 and 2.71 fold (clozapine) acutely and chronically, which were reflected in plasma 13CO2 enrichment. Typical and atypical antipsychotic drugs induce a serious delay in 13C glucose tissue absorption and also increase futile cycling which researchers expect can be used as early biomarkers of the metabolic syndrome.

"In the future, it may be possible to predict the emergent risk of obesity, diabetes and other metabolic disorders linked to certain drugs, and to test for risk of these conditions in the general population, using a simple blood or breath test," said Paul Lee, M.D., SiDMAP's Senior Scientific Advisor. "This novel biomarker will require further validation, but our early studies in collaboration with Dr. Sarnyai at Cambridge are extremely promising."

About SiDMAP

SiDMAP provides flux-based, metabolic profiling services to pharmaceutical, biotech and research organizations seeking to enhance their drug development processes, and develop further insights into a drug's mechanism of action and disease states. SiDMAP's unique tracer technology, exclusively licensed from Los Angeles BioMedical Research Institute at Harbor U.C.L.A Medical Center, measures metabolic pathway flux to gain unique insights into cell function. A SiDMAP assay provides clients with an accurate, dynamic metabolic analysis of a compound's biological impact in both in vitro and in vivo systems and in humans for the development of clinical and pre-clinical biomarkers. SiDMAP is headquartered in Los Angeles, California.

NOTE TO EDITORS: In the word [U -13C6]-D-Glucose, the 13 should be superscript and the 6 should be subscript. Similarly, in 13C, the 13 should be superscript, and in 13CO2, the 13 should be superscript and the 2 should be subscript. These symbols may not appear properly in some systems.