Prognomix, Servier enter R&D agreement to identify novel type 2 diabetes targets

Les Laboratoires Servier, France (Servier) and Prognomix Inc., Canada  (Prognomix) announced today that they have entered into a research and development agreement aimed at identifying novel targets as part of programs meant to develop innovative type 2 diabetes and metabolic disease treatment.

This collaboration will rest on the discovery platform developed by Prognomix. This platform comprises genomic and bioinformatic technologies, a database of phenotypic and genotypic data and an assembly of results of the analysis of these data that are at the foundation of a knowledge base that will be exploited by the partners. This knowledge base was developed using, among other, the data collected during ADVANCE, the largest clinical study ever conducted on Type 2 diabetes and of which Servier was the main sponsor.

As part of the agreement, Servier will make a contract signature fee payment and will be granted options to obtain rights to use the results of the collaboration.

According to Dr. Pavel Hamet, President of Prognomix, "Closing of this agreement represents an important step in the development of Prognomix and confirms the value of the knowledge base that we have developed. We are happy to initiate this collaboration with Servier, a well known and very  innovative pharmaceutical company and we are excited by the opportunities it represents."

According to Dr. Emmanuel Canet, President of Research and Development at Servier, "This partnership confirms Servier interest for well validated biomarkers, allowing for the identification of the patients who will benefit the most from Servier therapeutic innovations."