BASEL, Switzerland--The decision by Novartis to invest $250 million to build a genomics research center in California (see BioInform, April 13) came after several failed attempts to find a partner.
Paul Herrling, head of basic research, said that when Novartis looked at companies active in the genomics field, "We saw that they all were specialized in one or the other technology--bioinformatics, mouse transgenes, worm, proteomics--but none were integrated, none had available all of these techniques. We firmly believe that in order to solve gene function it is important to have all of these techniques available in one place."