NEW YORK, Aug. 29 – Sequenom has begun the first phase of a research partnership with British drug giant GlaxoSmithKline to create a human genome-wide SNP assay portfolio to help them identify genes responsible for disease states and drug reaction, the companies said on Wednesday.

The deal calls for GlaxoSmithKline to be given access to Sequenom’s SNP assay portfolio. The pharmaceutical company then plans to select SNP candidates for genome-wide association studies.