BioWorld International Correspondent

MUNICH, Germany - Ingenium Pharmaceuticals AG added the mouse tissue archive of the German National Research Center for Environment and Health GmbH (GSF) to its own archive in its Ingenotyping technology platform. The addition doubles Ingenium's archive, making it one of the largest repositories of modified murine DNA and tissue.

"With this acquisition, we have gained three to six months' time in developing our platform for partners and internal research," Michael Nehls, CEO of Ingenium, told BioWorld International. "Because the likelihood of finding a mutated gene that is interesting either for us or for a partner is almost linearly correlated with the size of the archive. Doubling the size of our archive means that likelihood of finding a gene is now more than 90 percent. The increasing confidence level is a big advantage for developing other partnerships."

Ingenotyping, the Munich-based company's platform, is a method for producing murine models to validate compounds and targets in drug discovery and development. The company reports that it needs less than three works to confirm whether a collaborator's desired gene alteration is in its archive, and that if the alteration is available, it can deliver a model within three months.

Ingenium also entered an agreement with Sequenom Inc., of San Diego, to produce mouse models for Sequenom's drug discovery and development programs. Sequenom's discovery genetics program will specify disease-related genes, and Ingenium will provide models with the desired modifications. Sequenom expects the partnership to accelerate its validation and drug development processes.

The partnership with Sequenom is more than a revenue source for Ingenium, Nehls said. "It also shows that we have technology that is of substantial value for other partners and companies that are trying to decipher gene functions. It proves the technology that we have and the company's ability to perform."

Nehls added that a key advantage for Sequenom was "the speed with which we can analyze their target's activity in our murine models. Their platform delivers targets from their population genetic screening, and for Sequenom it's important to get to this know-how as rapidly as possible." In this case, Sequenom also cited Ingenium's ability to produce models for multiple genes in parallel, and their experience in analyzing gene changes for a particular area of therapeutic interest.

Ingenium declined to specify financial details of either transaction.