Intrexon Corporation, a privately held life sciences company focused on modular DNA control systems for biotherapeutics and other industry sectors, today announced the purchase of assets and operations of Avalon Pharmaceutical, Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Clinical Data, Inc. As part of the transaction, Intrexon has purchased substantially all of the equipment and assumed the lease of Avalon’s industry-leading bioassay facility in Germantown, MD, while Clinical Data retains rights to Avalon’s intellectual property, including rights to the AvalonRx® biomarker discovery platform and oncology programs. In addition, Intrexon has entered into an agreement that enables Clinical Data to continue to advance programs that are currently in progress at the Avalon facility. A number of Avalon scientists and technicians will be joining Intrexon and continuing to work at the Maryland location.
“This is a defining transaction for Intrexon and potentially our industry,” stated Thomas Reed, Ph.D., the company’s Founder and Chief Science Officer. “It brings together two highly advanced platforms that are also highly complementary.” According to Reed the Avalon operational platform is capable of rapidly processing large sets of complex bioassays using sophisticated automation systems and know-how. He emphasized, “Avalon did an outstanding job of building the most advanced bioassay platform available. It hits the sweet spot between high volume and bioassay complexity.” Reed continued, “This is an ideal match for Intrexon’s upstream UltraVector® platform which enables the high volume, modular design and production of complex transgenes. The integration of the two platforms creates an unparalleled, end-to-end capacity to rapidly design, produce, test and optimize a broad spectrum of candidate biologics, including controllable transgene systems, reprogrammed cell lines and many different types of recombinant proteins.”