NEW YORK, Sept. 22 (GenomeWeb News) - The Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research (NIBRI) has selected Genomics Collaborative (GCI) as its partner for a two-year target validation project, GCI said today.
NIBRI, the Cambridge, Mass.-based research arm institute of Novartis, will use GCI's Global Repostory database of human DNA, serum, and tissue samples in a research program to prioritize drug targets before entering clinical trials.
The non-exclusive research collaboration is for an initial two-year term, with the option to extend the program for two more years, GCI said. It will cover up to four therapeutic areas, beginning with type 2 diabetes.
GCI said that up to 100 genetic targets would be evaluated in 1,000 to 2,000 clinical samples for each therapeutic area.
Thomas Hughes, global head of NIBRI's diabetes disease area, said the project would help the company "find new and more effective ways to validate these targets and to establish the patient populations in which early drug candidates are most likely to succeed. This requires understanding variation in drug target genes and the impact of this variation on how compounds work in the human body before entering clinical trials."