Roche Inks Deal with RBM/Psynova to Develop Diagnostics for 'Differentiating' Schizophrenia Therapies

December 09, 2009

While RBM and Psynova wouldn't reveal for which drug or drugs they were developing a companion diagnostic, there is an investigational schizophrenia agent in Roche's pipeline, RG 1678, which improved negative symptoms of patients with the disease in a Phase II proof-of-concept study. Separately, RBM and Psynova have also released data on a panel of central nervous system biomarkers they plan to develop into a homebrew diagnostic test for schizophrenia.

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In this issue of Pharmacogenomics Reporter

Young Investigator Profile

Martin Beck

European Molecular Biology Laborator
Group Leader, Structural and Computational Biology Unit

Macromolecular Assemblies

Martin Beck's research group at EMBL combines biochemical approaches, proteomics and cryo-electron microscopy to study the structure and function of large macromolecular assemblies. The end goals of this work include developing integrated workflows for structure determination of large macromolecular assemblies such as the nuclear pore complex, elucidation of their function through real-time imaging, and ultimately revealing the steps of their assembly and disassembly process.
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Benchmark paper looks at the real cost of the CPU hour on the cloud.

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Sequencing and Analysis of the Hydra Genome
Chapman, Kirkness et al., Nature
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GWAS Identifies Risk Loci for Ulcerative Colitis
Abrecht, Wittig et al., Nature Genetics
Researchers present results from a genome-wide association study which identified risk loci at 7q22 and 22q13 for ulcerative colitis. Their analyses included 1,897,764 SNPs from 1,043 UC cases and 1,703 controls from Germany, and six replication panels from different regions in Europe.
People on the Move

Affymetrix has appointed Timothy Barabe to the chief financial officer post. He will run the firm's treasury and financial functions, investor relations, and its information technology departments. Barabe previously was senior VP and CFO at Human Genome Sciences, and he was CFO at Regent Medical. He also has worked in various roles at Novartis, including senior executive positions at CIBA Vision.

Barabe replaces John Batty, who was with Affymetrix for three years.

Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute Professor Leena Peltonen-Palotie died this week of cancer at her home in Finland, according to the Sanger Institute. Peltonen-Palotie was head of human genetics at Wellcome Trust, and she held appointments at the Broad Institute at MIT and Harvard and the Institute for Molecular Medicine Finland.
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Business
Osmetech has filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission for an initial public offering of stock in the US under the name of its newly proposed parent, GenMark Diagnostics. The firm hopes to raise around $40 million and intends to relocate its headquarters to Pasadena, Calif.
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The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute plans to pump $76 million over the next five years into a program aimed at combining cellular tools, molecular profiling, and genomics and integrating them into existing genotypic and clinical phenotypic data on naturally occurring human genetic variation.
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Roche Inks Deal with RBM/Psynova to Develop Diagnostics for 'Differentiating' Schizophrenia Therapies

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