NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – Horizon Discovery today announced it has completed its acquisition of contract research organization Hypoxium and formed a wholly owned subsidiary called Horizon Discovery Services.
HDS will provide oncology translational research services, such as drug profiling, novel 2D and 3D phenotypic assays, tumor microenvironment studies, and responsive-patient prediction. The services include access to Horizon's 250-plus patient relevant human isogenic cancer cell models.
Hypoxium, which had been based in the Cambridge Science Park since its founding in 2007, specializes in cell biology within the oncology therapeutic space and provides services to biotech and pharmaceutical firms to develop compounds.
HDS will provide services combining Hypoxium's expertise in mimicking the tumor microenvironments in an in vitro setting with Horizon's genetically defined isogenic X-Man human disease models, Horizon said in a statement. The method can help identify how specific cancer genes and assay conditions, such as limited oxygen growth factors, and nutrient supplies affect sensitivity to therapeutic compounds. As a result, targeted and more effective oncology drugs can be designed.
Horizon is investing $500,000 into a two-year research program in order to support R&D work to expand HDS' menu of services. The program will add additional assays to the X-Man Pathways panel and format them into high-throughput in vivo assays that will be operated by TGen Drug Development, Horizon's partner in the US.
As a result of its completed acquisition, Dan Cowell, formerly the CEO of Hypoxium, has been appointed chief operating officer of Horizon. Kyla Grimshaw, formerly research director of Hypoxium, is now research director at HDS.
A week ago, Cambridge, UK-based Horizon announced a Series C financing round that raised £6.25 million ($9.9 million).