ChemGenex and UK’s Vernalis sign $2m partnership

Deakin University molecular geneticist Professor Greg Collier was right on the mark when he chose the chubby Israeli sand rat as a model species for his quest for susceptibility genes for non insulin-dependent diabetes.

The biotech company that Collier founded, Melbourne-based ChemGenex, has already made $36 million from its diabetes research partnership with giant pharma Merck Sante.

Like many of today’s overweight and human beings, the Israeli sand rat prefers to chow down in company – and just like humans, when deprived of social contact, it is susceptible to depression.

ChemGenex has announced a $2 million deal with UK biopharmaceutical company Vernalis, which is enjoying a dizzying rise in the international market, to investigate a highly prospective package of nine depression-susceptibility genes from the rotund rodents as potential targets for new anti-depressant drugs.

Dr James Campbell, ChemGenex’s VP of operations, described the agreement as “an excellent starting point” for a relationship that the company believes, in time, could prove as lucrative as its Merck Sante deal.

Starting next year, the two companies will use data from the Human Genome Project to begin ferreting out human allelic homologues of the rat depression-susceptibility genes – knowing that at least one of ChemGenex’s patented genes has already been independently confirmed as a player in human depression.

Collier’s team used gene microarray technology to detect changes in gene-expression patterns in the brains of Israeli sand rats, which like humans, segregate into depressive and non-depressive populations, in a way that reflects a strong inherited component to their depression.

Campbell said researchers tracked changes in gene expression patterns in the rats’ brains over a period of 10 days after they were isolated from their littermates.

Four days into the experiment, susceptible rats began to exhibit marked changes in expression patterns. Differential analysis led researchers to nine candidate genes.

Confirmation that these genes have a role in depression came when the researchers gave repressed rats the anti-depressant minaprine. It completely relieved their symptoms, which closely mimic those of human depression.

Campbell said ChemGenex already had Vernalis on its watch-list of potential commercial partners, and set up the agreement after discussions with Vernalis executives who visited Melbourne last December.

“Vernalis have a really visionary CEO in Simon Sturge, and through a series of strategic mergers and acquisitions, and their own excellent gene-discovery program, they already have a strong revenue stream,” he said.

“They’ve been one of the standout biotechs in Europe in the past 18 months, and we are delighted to have sealed this partnership.”