NEW YORK, June 20 – Genomics Collaborative has signed a deal with The Hospital for Joint Diseases in New York City to gather patient data to identify and validate gene targets related to rheumatoid arthritis, the organizations announced Wednesday.
Genomics Collaborative of Cambridge, Mass. will fund the three-year research effort while gaining exclusive rights to any products as a result of the collaboration. Genomics Collaborative would not disclose the amount of research funding.
“The goal for the project is to more precisely diagnose rheumatoid arthritis,” Michael Pellini, CEO of Genomics Collaborative, told GenomeWeb. “Ultimately, the aim is to stratify the patients not only if they have rheumatoid arthritis but also the likely disease course.”
The company aims to identify approximately 100 novel targets, including polymorphisms, genes and expression markers, in the first year of research, and to spend the remaining two years of the collaboration validating the targets and stratifying patients in terms of disease progression and drug response, said Pellini.
“At this point, we have not decided on the best method of the diagnostic product,” said Pellini, though he listed a microarray chip designed in partnership with another company as a possibility.
The collaboration also includes New York University School of Medicine’s Division of Rheumatology, NYU’s Functional Genomics Lab and the NYU hospital network.
Genomics Collaborative performs disease association studies, target validation, and tissue-based studies to develop pharmaceutical and pharmacogenomics capabilities.