Ingenium Pharmaceuticals AG and Gruenenthal GmBH announced a collaboration in which Ingenium will use its INGENOtyping technology platform to develop animal models with defined gene alterations. The focus of the collaboration will be the development of unique animal models for genes relating to novel therapeutic discoveries in Gruenenthal's major therapeutic focus area of pain. No financial terms were disclosed.

"Gruenenthal is an established leader in pain research and Ingenium is pleased to collaborate with them to meet their research and development goals," stated Michael Nehls, chief executive at Ingenium. "Our results to date for producing models, both for our internal research and for our partners, demonstrate the power and speed of the technology, and we continue to prove that INGENOtyping can provide a mouse model of choice in an unprecedented time frame of only a few months. Drug discovery is a long process where every day invested has an impact on the bottom line. The time-savings of the INGENOtyping platform are therefore significant in comparison to other technologies."

"We are looking forward to the opportunity to employ Ingenium's unique technology for the rapid generation of mouse models," commented Klaus Langner, head of Research at Gruenenthal. "We hope that INGENOtyping will allow us to validate a couple of very promising novel targets for the treatment of pain that we have identified in the course of our five year molecular pain project sponsored in part by the German Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF)."

Ingenium's INGENOtyping technology is a high-speed second-generation tool for the in vivo validation of drug targets. INGENOtyping can provide in as little as four months a series of mammalian models that carry unique genetic alterations in any target gene of interest. These models include knockouts as well as more subtle functional alterations, such as increased and reduced gene target activity. The INGENOtyping technology is based on a genetically subtle chemical process that generates point mutations in genes and Ingenium's expertise in quickly and reliably producing and analyzing mammalian models of disease.