Avestha Gengraine Technologies Pvt. Ltd. has entered into research collaboration with Sequenom Inc., to analyse Sequenom's proprietary panels of genetic markers associated with diabetes as well as with breast and lung cancers in Indian patient samples.

Under this collaboration, Avesthagen has purchased the high performance MassARRAY genotyping system from Sequenom, used for the purpose of SNP discovery. The machine works using the principle of MALDI-TOF MS, where the mass and correlating genotype of DNA are determined in Real time using the MassARRAY RT software. The MassARRAY system is quite versatile and will allow Avesthagen to leverage this versatility to engage in future research collaborations in areas such as clinical genetics, toxicogenomics and nutrigenomics. This system is the first of its kind to be installed in India.

"The collaboration between our two companies may lead to important diabetes, breast and lung cancer diagnostic and prognostic applications in the field of molecular medicine. The study should provide insight into the extent to which genetic markers, that predispose an individual to a higher disease risk, affect disease progression and therapeutic outcome," stated Villoo Morawala Patell, Avesthagen's Founder & CEO.

Avesthagen and Sequenom will jointly analyze the resulting data to determine the extent to which the disease predisposition markers are associated with specific clinical endpoints. The collaboration will capitalize on Sequenom's state of the art Genetic Analysis technologies and Avesthagen's unique knowledge in pharmacogenomics and functional genomics, a release from Avesthagen said.