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Genaissance Obtains License to Vanderbilt Patent Linking Genetics to Key Drug Safety Issue

31 Jan 2005 - Genaissance Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a leading developer and user of genetic information to help guide medical therapy, expanded its ability to provide genetic tests for critical variants of key cardiac ion channel proteins involved in drug-induced cardiac arrhythmias. Drug-induced cardiac arrhythmias that are associated with prolongation of the QT interval on the electrocardiogram have led to the withdrawal from the market of such well-known drugs as the heartburn agent PropulsidŽ and the antihistamine SeldaneŽ.
 
Vanderbilt University has granted Genaissance exclusive commercial rights to U.S. Patent 6,458,542, which claims screening patients for susceptibility for drug-induced cardiac arrhythmias by testing for the presence of a common polymorphism in KCNE1, an important cardiac ion-channel gene. The patent licensed from Vanderbilt University adds to Genaissance's extensive patent estate for genes associated with Long QT syndrome (LQTS).