Horizon secures two deals for cancer cell lines

Discovery agreement

Horizon Discovery Ltd has signed a discovery agreement with the British Columbia Cancer Agency of Canada. The agreement relates to some of its X-MAN Mutant And Normal human isogenic cell-lines, the first genetically-defined in vitro models of human cancer and their matched normal cell-types, for use in personalised drug discovery and assessing clinical trials.

Darrin Disley, Chairman of Horizon Discovery, said, “We are really pleased to be able to make our X-MAN lines available to academic researchers via access arrangements that are affordable. [...] We plan to announce a […] new collaborative concept for academia in the fourth quarter of 2009 that will enable broad access to our Genesis and X-MAN platform technologies.”

Under the agreement the British Columbia Cancer Centre will pay Horizon undisclosed up-front fee, and share resulting data.

At the same time, Cambridge-based Horizon announced another deal with the US Pharmaceutical company SuperGen, also for the X-MAN technology.

The agreement covers the screening of a number of lead compounds on a wide panel of human isogenic cell-lines comprising target genotypes of interest to SuperGen. The approach may enable SuperGen to gather information relating to the selectivity and mode-of-action of its compounds using model in vitro systems.