India's Ocimum Biosolutions has acquired the genomics division of US services firm Gene Logic to "further strengthen our unique positioning in this space."
Ocimum's CEO Anuradha Acharya said that the Gene Logic addition brings the firm closer to its goal of becoming "the number one genomics outsourcing company in the world… we now offer the largest portfolio of integrated genomic solutions."
It now has an additional US site in Gaithersburg, Maryland - prior to the purchase, Ocimum was providing its genomic products and services from facilities in Indianapolis, US; Ijsselstien, The Netherlands; and Hyderabad, India.
Meanwhile, the company also announced that it has raised capital from Kubera Cross Border Fund (KUBC) for an equity investment of up to $17m, to provide it with growth capital and acquisition financing.
Commenting on the Gene Logic buy, Ramanan Raghavendran, managing partner at Kubera Partners said: "We believe genomics outsourcing is at the cusp of significant growth, given the demands on the drug discovery function for labs around the world".
Recently, chemistry-focused contract research organisation (CRO) ChemDiv has announced two new discovery services deals, the financial terms of which were not disclcosed.
The first is a collaborative discovery research agreement with fellow US firm Siwa Biotech Corporation, under which ChemDiv will initiate a high-throughput screen for small molecule inhibitors of tyrosylprotein sulfotransferases.
Another US firm, Orion Pharma, has also selected ChemDiv as a discovery partner for small molecule drugs against some of Orion's priority targets, the nature of which were not revealed.
Under this agreement, ChemDiv will use its Discovery outSource platform to screen rationally designed chemical libraries against Orion's chosen targets, upon which Orion
will select hit series for subsequent lead optimisation.
"Our partnership with ChemDiv complements our in-house discovery effort in this particular project," said Dr Antti Haapalinna, director of Nonclinical R&D, Orion Pharma.
In other news, MIR Preclinical Services (MIR) has recently increased its in vitro service offerings to include evaluation of cell lines and tissue samples for target protein expression, modulation and activation status, determination of cytokine levels, and antiproliferation and cytotoxicity assays (IC50). The company said it will also offer custom biochemistry and cell biology services if required.
Daniel Everdeen has recently joined MIR as Manager of in vitro services. Mr. Everdeen has over 21 years of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology experience. Dan has 18 years of drug discovery experience in the pharmaceutical industry, most recently with Pharmacia and Pfizer.
His extensive experience encompasses a large variety of assays and technologies across a broad spectrum of therapeutic areas.
"Our goal is to apply a more integrated suite of services to the evaluation of drug candidates while maintaining a personalized service," said Daniel Everdeen, who was recently recruited by MIR to manage the expanded in vitro services division.