GENAISSANCE PHARMACEUTICALS JOINS MSI'S FUNCTIONAL GENOMICS CONSORTIUM
Molecular Simulations Inc. (MSI), a subsidiary of Pharmacopeia, Inc. (Nasdaq: PCOP), welcomes Genaissance Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (Nasdaq: GNSC), a leader in the field of personalized medicines, as a charter member of its functional genomics Consortium. As a Consortium charter member, Genaissance has access to MSI's AtlasBaseä, a broad collection of available gene sequences with enhanced functional annotations.
MSI's Functional Genomics Consortium was launched last year to deliver new automated technology for high-throughput structural proteomics, protein function assignment, and sequence annotation. Other Consortium members include Hyseq and Cytoclonal Pharmaceutics.
Dr. Richard Judson, Senior Vice President of Informatics at Genaissance, comments, "Personalized medicine is a new and exciting field with the potential to have an enormous impact on pharmaceutical development and on human health. Based upon an initial validation project, we are confident that joining MSI's Functional Genomics Consortium will make us better equipped to analyze the functional implications of gene variability. This knowledge will add another dimension to our ability to predict individual drug responses based on each person's DNA.
"Dr. Scott Kahn, Senior Vice President Life Sciences at MSI, adds, "We are excited to be working closely with Genaissance to expand the scope of the Consortium to include the challenges of pharmacogenetics, characterization of gene product variants, and the understanding of the functional significance of SNPs and haplotypes. As we enter the next competitive theater in the post-genomic era, the higher resolution of information derived from knowledge of predicted protein structure will give Genaissance a competitive advantage in their pursuit of personalized medicines."
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