Aventis and Avalon Form Oncology Collaboration
Avalon to utilize molecular cytogenetics to identify and validate oncology targets
Aventis and Avalon Pharmaceuticals, Inc., have entered into an agreement to collaborate on the identification, discovery and validation of drugable screening targets. As part of the agreement, Avalon will provide Aventis with a subset of its library of more than 200 identified amplicons (regions of chromosomal amplification) that have been discovered through cytogenetic analysis. Through further analysis of these amplicons, the two companies will then jointly seek to validate oncology targets.
"We have been extremely impressed with Avalon's molecular cytogenetics platform and the quality of their scientists," said Thierry Hercend, Ph.D., head of Aventis oncology research. "Through this alliance with Avalon, Aventis hopes to generate innovative drugs targeting amplified oncogenes, a promising class of cancer drug targets."
"We are excited about this agreement, which allows us to advance our cancer target initiative to the next stage of discovery," said Ken Carter, Ph.D., President and CEO of Avalon Pharmaceuticals, Inc. "Aventis has demonstrated a strong commitment to the oncology field and shares our commitment to bring better cancer treatments to market faster through the smarter use of innovative genomics technologies."
Molecular cytogenetic analysis is a genome-wide scanning technique that universally detects the genetic rearrangements that occur in cancer cells. Avalon's amplified oncogene discovery program has used high-resolution molecular cytogenetics to generate a proprietary database of cytogenetic amplifications. Amplified oncogenes in human cancer can then be rapidly identified by integrating this database with whole-genome gene expression analysis. Amplified oncogenes represent a class of proteins that are directly related to oncogenesis, and that have been validated within the context of human disease. Since cancer cells are known to show particular vulnerability to the disruption of these dominant oncogenic pathways, amplicons represent high-quality targets for drug development.
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