Horizon Discovery Ltd. (Horizon), a leading provider of research tools to support the development of personalized medicines, has announced a strategic partnership agreement with Promega Corporation, the leader in innovative life science research technologies. Partnership will combine Horizon’s genome editing technology with Promega’s reporter technologies to enable personalized drug development. The partnership centers on the delivery of endogenous gene reporting capabilities, in the form of Promega’s luciferase and HaloTag reporter technologies, using Horizon’s proprietary homologous recombination-based precision genome editing technology (rAAV GENESIS).
 
The scientific objective of the partnership is to develop next-generation predictive human disease models, recapitulating genetic mutations exactly as they occur in patient tumours, thereby enabling the elucidation of protein expression and protein-protein interactions encoded by those mutations. To date, Horizon has applied its rAAV gene-editing platform to reconstitute over 370 cancer mutations and variations in human cell lines that serve as patient-relevant, predictive in vitro models of genetic disease.
 
Additional objectives will be to enable the study of tumour response to anti-cancer treatments in real-time, by offering in vivo xenografts of Horizon’s tumorigenic engineered isogenic cell lines with incorporated Promega reporter tags. Preliminary studies have revealed exceptionally clear images of tumor graft response to targeted molecular therapies. This capability adds to drug discovery scientists’ existing toolbox of patient relevant models to support the development of a greater number of more efficacious anti-cancer drugs.

“I am pleased to announce this long term collaboration that will enable further elucidation of genetic drivers of disease, and subsequent development of a new toolbox of targeted therapies. For the first time, investigators will be able to directly trace the relationship between protein expression, the interaction of that target protein within its molecular pathway, and how it is encoded by the genome”, said Dr. Paul Morrill, commercial director, Horizon.
 
Tom Livelli, vice president Life Sciences Products and Services, Promega Corporation, commented: “We are looking forward to working with Horizon, and we believe the combination of technologies will lead to the development of invaluable resources in the investigation of genetic disease, and the development of new, targeted therapies.”