Unlocking Precision Medicine: How Olink’s PEA Technology is Revolutionizing Biomarker Discovery and Targeted Proteomics

In today’s era of precision medicine, reliable biomarkers are critical to unlocking better diagnostics, targeted therapies, and faster clinical decisions. Yet traditional methods often lack the scale and specificity needed to keep pace with innovation.

Olink’s Proximity Extension Assay (PEA) is changing that—bringing unprecedented power, precision, and scalability to proteomics. With its dual-recognition and DNA-barcoding approach, PEA delivers over 99.5% specificity, minimizing false positives while enabling simultaneous measurement of 1,500+ proteins in minimal sample volumes.

Why It Matters

PEA seamlessly bridges discovery and clinical validation, allowing researchers to move from wide proteomic screening to targeted panels—all on the same platform. This eliminates technology handoffs, accelerates timelines, and improves reproducibility across studies.

Biopharma companies are increasingly adopting PEA to: Methods and clinical biomarker discovery for targeted proteomics using Olink technology - PubMed

• Identify novel, non-invasive biomarkers

• Stratify patients for targeted therapies

• Predict therapeutic responses and optimize trial design

Real-World Impact

• Multiple Sclerosis: Octave Bioscience used Olink’s PEA to build a 21-protein panel with >90% accuracy for disease activity monitoring. Improving MS clinical care with an innovative lab-developed test — Olink®

• Alzheimer’s Disease: A 12-protein signature distinguished patients with >90% accuracy—improving early diagnosis and care strategies. High-performance protein signatures in the battle against Alzheimer’s Disease & dementia — Olink®

• Ovarian Cancer: An 11-protein biomarker panel enabled early detection and better patient outcomes.

In the UK Biobank Pharma Proteomics Project, over 3,000 proteins were analyzed across 54,000+ samples—delivering predictive insights into aging, dementia, and chronic disease years before symptoms appear. Launch of world’s most significant protein study set to usher in new understanding for medicine

The Future is Proteomics-Driven

By integrating next-gen sequencing with high-throughput proteomics, Olink is enabling researchers to generate nearly 150,000 data points per run—driving smarter drug development, precision diagnostics, and patient-centric care.

Final Thoughts

As biomarker-driven R&D becomes a strategic imperative, Olink’s PEA is fast becoming a cornerstone in the future of drug discovery.

#Proteomics #Biomarkers #Olink #DrugDiscovery #PrecisionMedicine #LifeSciences #ClinicalResearch #Innovation