Horizon Licenses 50 New X-MAN Cell Lines from Public University Corporation Yokohama City University
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Horizon Discovery (Horizon), has announced that it has secured a worldwide exclusive license for 50 new X-MAN™ (gene X- Mutant And Normal) cell lines from Public University Corporation Yokohama City University (YCU).
The panel of cell lines, which includes many important double knockout cell lines, is focused on DNA repair and is in the NALM-6 cell line, a B-cell derived line. Therefore, the agreement extends Horizon’s panel of X-MAN cell lines to include B-cells.
NALM-6 is a human B cell precursor leukemia cell type, established from the peripheral blood of an acute lymphoblastic leukemia. These new X-MAN cell lines will allow researchers an insight into the role of DNA repair in leukemia, as well as providing a model for other diseases.
The new panel also complements Horizon’s existing X-MAN DNA repair panel in the HCT-116 colon cell line, providing extensive reagents for the analysis of DNA repair pathways.
Under the terms of the license agreement, Horizon will pay YCU up-front and on-going royalty payments, in return for world-wide exclusive rights to distribute these lines.
The agreement forms part of Horizon’s strategy to generate at least 2500 new X-MAN models of cancer, neurodegenerative, and cardiovascular disease.
These models will support drug discovery researchers in their effort to understand how complex genetic diseases manifest themselves in real patients and help rationalize many aspects of drug development, reducing the cost of bringing to market new personalized therapies.
Dr Rob Howes, Principal Scientist at Horizon, said: “We are pleased to license these cell lines from YCU as this extensive panel of single and double mutants in genes involved in DNA repair will allow researchers to understand the mechanisms of DNA repair and how they are involved in the development of leukemia”.
