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Dr Reddy's, Incyte in gene pact

Syed Amin Jafri, in Hyderabad

Dr Reddy's Laboratories Limited, an emerging global pharmaceutical company, and Reddy US Therapeutics, Inc, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Dr Reddy's, and Incyte Genomics, Inc, the leading genomic information company, on Tuesday announced the signing of a collaborative agreement at Atlanta, Georgia.

The agreement will allow Dr Reddy's and Reddy US access to LifeSeq Gold, Incyte's industry-leading gene sequence database and ZooSeq, Incyte's animal model database.

Financial terms of the agreement have not been disclosed.

According to a company release, under the terms of the agreement, Dr Reddy's and Reddy US will have non-exclusive access to Incyte's significant intellectual portfolio of genes.

Dr Reddy's and Reddy US will be able to access Incyte's high-quality sequence-verified cDNA clones, or copies of genes, for further research.

Dr Reddy's and Reddy US will also have the opportunity to leverage Incyte's industry-leading bioinformatics capabilities to aid in the discovery of additional proteins to accelerate discovery of target proteins for small molecule therapeutics.

The LifeSeq Gold database provides researchers with a comprehensive view of the entire human genome by integrating proprietary expressed sequence tag and full-length gene sequence information, mapping data and in addition to public genomic sequence information. The database contains more than 120,000 gene transcripts of which approximately half are not commercially available elsewhere.

"We are pleased that Dr Reddy's has chosen the Incyte LifeSeq Gold database to further their therapeutic research and development efforts," said Roy A Whitfield, chief executive officer of Incyte.

"Dr. Reddy's decision to employ genomics into their research and development efforts serves as a good indicator of their progressive thinking and aggressive approach to pharmaceutical development.

"Researchers at Dr Reddy's will be able to cross-reference data from ZooSeq with LifeSeq to better predict a drug's behavior, efficacy, and side effects.

"In addition, they will be able to utilise Incyte's vast computer processing power, and benefit from our industry leading position in generating and managing genomic information."

Dr K Anji Reddy, chairman of Dr Reddy's Laboratories Limited and Reddy US Therapeutics, Inc, said, "In this post-genomic era, we recognise that genome-based research is essential for drug discovery."

He further added, "Based upon our analysis of the current genome-based products, we believe that our collaborative agreement with Incyte will help to accelerate the process identifying new therapeutic targets. Our expertise in drug discovery and medicinal chemistry, together with the information contained in the Incyte database, will lead to important new pharmaceutical compounds."

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