Genaissance signs major deal with AstraZeneca

Genaissance Pharmaceuticals of the USA has entered into an agreementwith drug major AstraZeneca under which it will apply its technology to one of the latter's target discovery programs. Under the terms of the deal, AstraZeneca will gain access to specific HAP Markers from Genaissance's database and use the latter's DecoGen Informatics platform to correlate the markers to disease and clinical outcomes.

"Pharmacogenomics has an expanding role to play in drug discovery and development,'' said John Stageman, AstraZeneca's vice president of enabling science and technology, adding that Genaissance's platform has the potential "to accelerate our internal efforts.'' The US company's chief executive, Gualberto Ruano, was also enthusiastic about the deal, saying "we are very pleased to become partners with one of the leading pharmaceutical companies in the world.'' Genaissance already has HAP technology deals in place with Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson.