Boehringer in oncology tie-up
pharmafile | January 16, 2013 | News story | Research and Development, Sales and Marketing | Boehringer, Cancer, horizon, x-man
Boehringer Ingelheim has entered a five-year tie-up with a UK biotech company which specialises in helping research into personalised medicines.
Based in Cambridge, Horizon Discovery will aid Boehringer’s oncology drug discovery programme by helping to give researchers a better understanding of the genetic basis of cancers.
Horizon’s specialities are the provision of genetically-defined cell lines, reporter gene assay kits and genomic reference standards.
No details were forthcoming about the financial details of the agreement, but Horizon’s X-MAN cell lines will be at the centre of the deal.
The idea is that these can help treatments become targeted towards specific disease biomarkers and allow the creation of smaller, faster clinical trials by pre-selecting patients most likely to respond.
For Boehringer, the company will look at compounds across a range of X-MAN isogenic models, profiling them to highlight their anti-cancer properties and thereby guiding Boehringer’s discovery programme.
Meanwhile GENESIS, which is Horizon’s precision gene-editing technology, will be used to develop disease model cell lines to Boehringer’s specifications. This will allow researchers to model accurately the illness-causing mutations found in patients.
Horizon’s vice president of sales, Kam Dhaliwal, said the deal was “recognition of the value our X-MAN cell lines and drug discovery services can add to the search for novel treatments for cancer”.
Adam Hill
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