Horizon Discovery (Horizon), a provider of research tools to support the development of personalized medicines, and Mirna Therapeutics (Mirna), a leading developer of microRNA (miRNA)-based therapeutics, announced today that they have entered into a collaboration agreement to test the impact of Mirna’s proprietary miRNA mimics on a panel of Horizon’s patient-relevant human isogenic cancer cell models.
One of the challenges that cancer researchers face in developing cancer therapeutics is that of predicting which patient sub-groups will respond to future drug treatments. Horizon’s novel, genetically-defined X-MANTM human cell lines (or “patients-in-a-test-tube”) will be used to test the effects of common mutations in cancer patients on the efficacy of Mirna’s miRNA mimics.
Commenting on the collaboration, Dr Darrin M Disley, Chairman of Horizon Discovery Ltd said: “Our Company’s broad panel of over 250 different X-MAN cell lines are being used by academic and industry leaders to identify the effect of individual mutations on drug activity, patient responsiveness and resistance, and to successfully predict which patient sub-groups will respond to currently-available and future drug treatments. We are glad to now also add Mirna Therapeutics to this group”.
Dr. Paul Lammers, President and CEO of Mirna, said: “Working with Horizon’s patient-relevant cancer cell models will increase the understanding of how our highly potent tumor suppressor miRNA mimics act upon human cancer cells characterized by different disease-causing mutations. Such knowledge will help us better define the optimal patient population for our future clinical trials.”
This project is funded in part by a Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas (CPRIT) Commercialization grant.
Horizon
Mirna Therapeutics
