Genaissance and Ipsogen Announce Cancer Biomarker Research Agreements

Ipsogen SAS and Genaissance Pharmaceuticals, Inc. have announced that they have signed collaboration agreements with two global pharmaceutical companies.

These collaborations will focus on identifying biomarkers that may drive the response to anti-cancer drugs.

Under the terms of the agreements, Ipsogen will collect samples from clinical trials and will perform sample processing and pathology analysis, while Genaissance will perform genotyping and data analysis.

“These agreements demonstrate the value of the combined Ipsogen and Genaissance platforms to discover and validate biomarkers in support of the clinical development of anti-cancer drugs,” said Vincent Fert, President and CEO of Ipsogen.

“The capabilities of Genaissance in pharmacogenomics allied with our comprehensive expertise in cancer biomarkers answers an unmet need of the pharmaceutical industry.”

“With Ipsogen as our partner, we have the ability to produce high-quality genomic data from tumor biopsies taken from patients at investigative sites throughout the world, a significant offering for the drug development industry,” said Kevin Rakin, President and CEO of Genaissance.

In November 2004, Ipsogen and Genaissance signed a co-marketing agreement under which the companies jointly offer an integrated package of gene expression and genotyping technologies to developers and marketers of cancer drugs.

The offering includes their respective technologies, services and diagnostic capabilities.