Qiagen announced this week that it has taken a worldwide license to a novel siRNA selection algorithm designed by Swiss drug maker Novartis.

According to Eric Lader, associate director of business development at Qiagen, Novartis designed the algorithm using a collection of about 3,000 randomly designed synthetic siRNAs against 34 targets provided by Qiagen. The randomness of the siRNAs, which allowed them to be chosen in an unbiased manner, is what makes Novartis’ algorithm different from methods others use to select siRNAs, he added.