New York, NY / ACCESSWIRE / February 26, 2015 / SeeThruEquity, a leading independent equity research and corporate access firm focused on small-cap and micro-cap public companies, today announced it has initiated coverage on Protea Biosciences Group, Inc. (PRGB) with a 12 Month Price Target of $1.10 per share.

The report is available here: PRGB Initiation Report. SeeThruEquity is an approved equity research contributor on Thomson First Call, Capital IQ, FactSet, and Zack's. The report will also be available on these platforms. We also contribute our estimates to Thomson Estimates, the leading estimates platform on Wall Street.

Based in Morgantown, West Virginia, Protea offered the first commercial services for mass spectrometry imaging. The company has access to world-class infrastructure including a 10,000-ft. state of the art mass spectrometry laboratory. In fact the company operates the only commercial multi-modality mass spectrometry imaging laboratory. Protea's team consists of 40 employees, including ten with a Ph.D. The company's technology appears to have gained notice from several leaders in the medical and scientific community as evidenced by partnerships with the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, Dow Chemical, and InSpero AG, a leader in 3D tissue analysis. We see these impressive partners as validating of the company's technology. In addition, Protea's technology is supported by ten issued patents, and has been cited in over 40 peer-reviewed publications.

"We see Protea as a speculative company in the biotechnology sector offering a potentially revolutionary product lineup with applications in a number of areas and high growth potential. Protea is focused on applying mass spectrometry imaging to improve the outcomes of the research and development in the medical industry. Founded in July 2001, the company has invested significant resources developing and launching a proprietary laser technology platform called LAESI, a new mass spectrometry imaging platform which the company believes has sweeping capabilities for augmenting research and development for new disease therapies, as well as the understanding and molecular diagnosis of diseases," stated Ajay Tandon, CEO of SeeThruEquity. "We are initiating coverage with a 12 month price target of $1.10 per share."

Additional highlights from the report are as follows:

Novel approach to a large potential market

Protea aims to build a revolutionary life sciences franchise by using mass spectrometry to usher in what it believes can be a new era of molecular profiling of biological samples. The company believes molecular profiles rendered through advanced mass spectrometry imaging can be invaluable in helping with many of the challenges faced by constituents of the medical community, including multi-billion dollar markets such as preclinical pharmaceutical research, biomarker discovery, and tissue-based diagnostics. Protea spent seven years and tens of millions of dollars developing a proprietary technology platform, LAESI, and complementary information services can generate rapid and fully automated 2D & 3D molecular analysis of complex biological samples without sample prep.

In the biopharmaceutical industry, Protea is a critical partner providing compelling bioanalytics to clients as they make preclinical decisions, enabling customers to focus their resources on developing drug candidates with the highest potential. The company's proprietary technology also has applications helping scientists learn more about existing diseases, such as cancer, and in personalized medicine using biomarker identification and analysis. While these areas represent the most immediate opportunities for Protea, we believe the company has identified myriad opportunities for future applications of molecular profiling.

Improving demand and widening customer base

Protea introduced the first commercial services for advanced mass spectrometry imaging in 2013 and has announced over 25 corporate customers including four of the ten largest pharmaceutical customers. The company has also announced several impressive partnerships, including Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and InSphero AG, which we see as validating of the company's technological claims. Though growing from a small base, the company has started to see the beginnings of tangible results from these efforts. 4Q14 results showed revenue up 53% from 4Q13 levels, and 2014 revenues grew 45% from 2013 to reach $1.77mn.

About Protea Biosciences Group, Inc.

Protea Biosciences Group, Inc. (PRGB) is a molecular information company providing innovative bioanalytical solutions to the pharmaceutical, agricultural, and life science industries. "Molecular information" refers to the process of transforming large analytical data sets, obtained by applying the Company's technology, expertise, and infrastructure, towards the identification and characterization of the proteins, metabolites and other biomolecules such as lipids, which are the byproducts of all living cells and life forms. This data is used by our clients in the pharmaceutical, biotech, agriculture and medical device industries.

The Company is applying its technology to the development of next generation, "direct molecular imaging" technology and service capabilities that enables a more rapid and comprehensive molecular profile of diseases based on biomolecules derived from the end result of gene expression in living cells, i.e. proteins, lipids, and metabolites.

About SeeThruEquity

SeeThruEquity is an equity research and corporate access firm focused on companies with less than $1 billion in market capitalization. The research is not paid for and is unbiased. We do not conduct any investment banking or commission based business. We are approved to contribute our research to Thomson One Analytics (First Call), Capital IQ, FactSet, Zacks, and distribute our research to our database of opt-in investors. We also contribute our estimates to Thomson Estimates, the leading estimates platform on Wall Street.

For more information visit www.seethruequity.com.

Contact:

Ajay Tandon
SeeThruEquity
info@seethruequity.com

SOURCE: SeeThruEquity