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.
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