Curie-Cancer and GenoSplice Technology in genomics informatics partnership

13 February 2013

Curie-Cancer, part of Institut Curie, and GenoSplice Technology have formed a partnership to combine their expertise in genomics to develop new cancer treatments.

This collaboration will provide GenoSplice with access to several Curie-Cancer technology platforms to allow it to continue to improve its services to its clients. GenoSplice will, in turn, be included in Institut Curie research programs and will benefit from access to the intellectual property generated during the projects. This agreement will allow GenoSplice to specifically contribute to the development of new products against cancer. The agreement also facilitates better understanding of complex diseases such as cancer through genome mapping.

GenoSplice will use Curie-Cancer’s genomic platform to continue to offer data processing to their primary client base of large pharmaceutical laboratories, biotechnology companies and academic research centres. The clients use GenoSplice to process the data gathered from high-speed sequencing and/or DNA microarrays, as well as to obtain a better understanding of the biological mechanisms involved with alternative splicing for their R&D projects.

One specific project in the collaboration will consist of defining a genomic map for prostate cancer. The map will be based on the analysis of data obtained from several hundred patients suffering from this type of cancer. The goal is twofold: to better understand the mechanisms involved in this disease and to group patients in order to guide clinicians in selecting therapeutic options.

A second project regards a new therapeutic approach in cancer treatment that will use a new type of “cell penetrating peptide” molecule. The effectiveness of one of these molecules has already been demonstrated in mice on xenograft models representative of human tumours.

The purpose of the project will be to identify the predictive markers of response to this molecule in order to select the patients who are most likely to respond positively to this new treatment. GenoSplice contributes with expertise enabling the identification of these markers, which will then allow treatments to be administered to patients most effectively.

“Combining the skills and expertise of GenoSplice and Curie-Cancer will allow us to provide cutting-edge bioinformatics solutions that are very competitive in the field of genomics,” said Marc Rajaud, president and co-founder, GenoSplice.

“Participating in research projects with the Institut Curie, which are sometimes multi-party and involve other international research institutes, will put us at the forefront of developments in our areas of interest and will enable us to provide the best possible service to our clients,” said Pierre de la Grange, scientific director and co-founder, GenoSplice.

“In addition to the prospect of being able to provide an additional therapeutic solution for our patients, we are pleased to be able to contribute to the development of a French SME, while progressing towards a greater understanding of cancers,” says Damien Salauze, director of Curie-Cancer. “Once again it’s clear that the expertise and experimental models developed at the Institut Curie for the purposes of fundamental research also meet the needs expressed by our partners in the industry. The Carnot label we obtained in 2011 is a testament to this.”