NEW YORK, Feb. 7 - Systems biology company Beyond Genomics has struck a research collaboration with DiaDexus, GenomeWeb has learned.
Stephen Ober, president of Beyond Genomics, on Thursday confirmed the account initially disclosed by sources close to both companies. "We did close a deal a couple of days ago with DiaDexus," said Ober.
It would be the second partnership for startup Beyond Genomics. The company's maiden deal was inked last May with Elan Pharmaceuticals to apply its systems biology techniques to Alzheimer's research.
The deal with DiaDexus is "a little different" from the Elan partnership, said Ober. "It is a research collaboration in the area of oncology and it has some components that are similar but some are different from the Elan transaction."
He would not disclose terms of the deal.
A source close to one of the companies said on Wednesday that DiaDexus, which uses genomic sequence data to develop diagnostic and therapeutic targets with a special focus on cancer, is unable to comment because it is in a silent period that precedes an IPO.
In its deal with Elan, Beyond Genomics got a $5 million equity investment in exchange for a two-year commitment to help the pharma giant find biomarkers and drug targets for Alzheimer's disease.
"In addition to providing clinical expertise and support for the program, Elan will grant the joint venture a non-exclusive license to an important animal model, a mouse strain which develops many of the features of the human disease," Stephen Ober, president of Cambridge, Mass.-based Beyond Genomics, said in May.
At the time, Elan Pharmaceuticals said it believed Beyond Genomics' technology could potentially help to uncover new proteins at play in Alzheimer's.
Beyond Genomics aims to increase the current level of throughput achieved by existing technologies and combine this capability with the ability to generate genomics, proteomics, and metabolite data.