Partnering

Genizon understands that pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies are increasingly interested in technologies and strategies that can help elucidate disease mechanisms and the basis for patient responses. Linking drug development decisions to patient genetics using Genizon's discoveries and platform can help the research and development process generate differentiated products with better clinical responses, fewer adverse reactions and lower attrition rates in shorter, less expensive clinical trials.

Current partners

Genizon has formed partnerships with the following companies:

	Pfizer Inc. Genizon has a collaboration and research agreement with Pfizer Inc. Pfizer also licensed the diagnostic rights to Genizon’s discovery programs in Alzheimer’s disease, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and endometriosis.
	Genentech Inc. Genentech has an exclusive license to Genizon's GeneMap of disease-associated genes generated from a genome-wide association study of Crohn's disease patients.

Genizon is seeking broad strategic collaborations with pharmaceutical and biotechnology company(s), collaborations that may involve not only the genetics of particular diseases or therapeutic areas, but also genetic evaluation in ongoing drug development programs to better define the characteristics of the drugs under development. Application of Genizon’s discovery platform across several areas of drug development from discovery to pharmacogenomics offers significant advantages:

• Help reduce attrition rates in later development by validating previously identified pathways, targets and lead drug candidates. Genizon can provide evidence that these pathways are truly relevant to the genetic root cause of a disease and help avoid pathways that lead to adverse reactions
• Assist in the discovery of novel targets leading to therapies that address the genetic basis of the disease
• Improve the ability to identify innovative and differentiated drugs that have more specificity for their targets, and therefore cause fewer adverse reactions and have better efficacy
• Using Genizon's GWAS-derived biomarkers, help select patients for clinical trials who are predisposed to respond to a drug. Late stage clinical trials designed on this basis could be expected to demonstrate superior efficacy with fewer patients and possibly within a shorter timeframe, be less expensive and have lower rates of attrition
• Through genome scans or other genetic analyses of DNA samples from clinical studies, help define the genetic origins of a drug response or adverse reaction, thereby reducing the risk of unexpected adverse reactions in late stage clinical trials
• Help identify biomarkers and generate molecular diagnostics that would enable earlier detection of a disease or predisposition to a disease, thereby enabling earlier treatment.

Genizon’s business partners have firsthand access to fully control the intellectual property portfolio derived from a GWAS and the timing of downstream activities, and have access to genetic and clinical data. Genizon’s pharmaceutical partners also have the ability to use Genizon’s platform and proprietary information to shape and inform the research and development process for their related programs.

For further information, please contact:

Dr. Bruno Paquin, Executive Director, Business Development
bruno.paquin@genizon.com