NEW YORK, Sept. 17 - Atugen said today that Schering has chosen it to help perform drug-target and gene-function studies.
The one-year agreement calls for Atugen to develop antisense oligonucleotides that inhibit the expression of certain undisclosed drug targets picked by Schering. The two German companies will then analyze the oligos, called GeneBlocs, in the hopes of validating gene function and disease association, the partners said.
The deal comes on the heals of a five-year drug target-validation collaboration that ends this year between Atugen, Schering, and Schering's US-based research group Berlex Biosciences.