Evaluation agreement
Horizon Discovery, founded by Cambridge University researcher Chris Torrance and based at the Babraham Research Campus, Cambridge, United Kingdom, has announced a commercial agreement with Millennium Pharmaceuticals Inc to evaluate broadly its X-MAN technology.
X-MAN ‘Mutant And Normal’ human isogenic cell-lines are, says Horizon, the first genetically defined in vitro models of human cancer and their matched normal cell-types that help accelerate and rationalise the discovery of novel “personalised” medicines and their optimal assessment in clinical trials.
The agreement covers an eight-month evaluation of a panel of seven X-MAN cell lines, including for the first time a set of double cancer-gene “knock-in” lines designed to evaluate known mechanisms of patient resistance to targeted agents.
Millennium will further characterise the lines and test known targeted agents against genotypes of interest to the company as well as internally developed compounds.
Chris Torrance, CEO of Horizon, said, “It is our aim to get our novel ‘patient-relevant’ X-MAN cancer models rapidly into the real world drug discovery arena and signing up Millennium to a comprehensive and expandable pilot programme will generate additional data on the ability of X-MAN cell lines to find novel ‘personalised’ cancer therapies.”
Millennium will pay Horizon a six-figure fee and share key data sets during the course of the evaluation period, which began in August.
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