Annogen announces research project with Pfizer to test non-coding genetic sequences

By staff reporter

- Last updated on GMT

Pic:getty/chaluk
Pic:getty/chaluk

Related tags Gene Genome Gene therapy

Annogen has begun a research project with Pfizer to functionally test tens of thousands of disease-related non-coding sequence variants for their effect on gene regulation.

The results may contribute to drug discovery by identifying functionally relevant non-coding variants that play a central role in diseases.

The Amsterdam-based biotech has developed its SuRE technology to identify regulatory NDA elements to be used for controlled gene expression, valuable for gene and cell therapy, as well as for recombinant protein production.

More than 95% of disease- and trait-related variants are found in the non-coding genome. However, identifying the important causal variants amongst the thousands of non-functional ones is a major challenge, as non-coding variant functionality cannot be deduced from sequence alone. Using its SuRE methodology, Annogen says it can obtain a functional read-out for up to millions of non-coding variants in parallel.

Joris van Arensbergen, Annogen’s founder and CEO, said: “We are very proud of this research project with Pfizer. We believe the non-coding part of the genome represents a huge opportunity for drug discovery that has been largely overlooked. We are now working with several top-tier biopharma companies on a broad array of projects, which demonstrates the interest in the SuRE platform and the AIM service for gene & cell therapy, drug discovery, and recombinant protein production”.

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