This story has been updated from a previous version.
NEW YORK, Dec 21 - Gene Logic said Thursday that it has signed two new database subscribers, Organon and Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals, and a custom database agreement with Biogen. The companies will have access to gene expression data derived from Gene Logic’s GeneExpress database.
Under the terms of the agreement with BioGen, GeneLogic will construct a customized database using data from the GeneExpress Suite, which Biogen will use in its genomics research initiatives.
The terms of the research collaboration include Gene Logic’s rights to certain data resulting from the research for eventual inclusion into the GeneExpress Suite.
The second new subscriber, Dutch pharmaceutical company Organon, will have access to two segments of the GeneExpress database: the ToxExpress Module, a reference library of toxicity markers, and the Atlas DataSuite, which focuses on normal human gene expression data across a broad range of samples.
Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals, a subsidiary of Boehringer Ingelheim of Ingelheim, Germany, will also subscribe to the ToxExpress Module, as well as the BioExpress Module, which includes gene expression information from a range of normal and diseased human tissues, tissues from model animal systems, and human and animal cell lines.
The Organon and Boehringer Ingelheim subscriptions are both three-year agreements and include use of Gene Logic’s GX2000 data mining and analysis software tools, which will be implemented across the companies’ global research and development facilities.
Gene Logic spokesman Robert Burrows said the GeneExpress database now has a total of ten subscribers, meeting the company's goal for the year.
Burrows declined to disclose financial terms of the Biogen, Organon, and Boehringer Ingelheim agreements.
Organon and Gene Logic have also entered into a separate research collaboration to develop a custom gene expression database to aid in Organon's development of therapeutic compounds for reproductive, psychiatric and cardiovascular diseases.
Under the custom discovery research collaboration, Gene Logic will use multiple gene expression platforms, including Affymetrix GeneChip technology and Gene Logic's proprietary READS technology, to identify genes that are differentially regulated in samples provided by Organon.
Gene Logic will also construct an integrated interface through which Organon researchers will be able to access both proprietary data resulting from the research collaboration as well as nonproprietary data available from the GeneExpress database.
" Gene Logic is becoming the provider of choice as gene expression becomes a more viable component in the research programs of pharmaceutical companies," Burrows said. " In the past year, we've transitioned from a pure research company to a marketing and sales focus."
" Our pipeline for potential customers has grown dramatically," Burrows said, adding that there are over 50 potential subscribers to the GeneExpress database at present.