Companies collaborate to discover cardiovascular disease biomarkers and drug targets
Global Genomics Group enters deal with Metabolon on panomic study to investigate biological networks and pathways.
Biomarker discovery company Metabolon (NC, USA) has recently announced an agreement with Global Genomics Group (G3; VA, USA) to investigate biological networks and pathways, in order to discover novel biomarkers and potential therapeutic targets for cardiovascular diseases. As part of the deal, Metabolon will analyze biochemicals for the ongoing GLOBAL study, which is funded by G3.
GLOBAL is an international, prospective, multi-center study that is recruiting up to 10,000 individuals to characterize novel disease networks and biomarkers for coronary artery disease. It is the largest panomic study combining genomics, epigenomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics, lipidomics and lipid proteomics with coronary computed tomographic angiography – an imaging technology for phenotyping, which allows precise disease classification in patients.
“Metabolon will employ its metabolomics platform (TrueVision™) and targeted assays to provide the most comprehensive assessment of the metabolism to complement the other ‘omic’ approaches used in this study,” explained Szilard Voros, Chief Executive Officer and co-founder of G3. “We expect to analyze 22 trillion data points from the computed tomographic phenotyping and the complete panomic analysis to decode the complex biology underlying atherosclerotic disease as to identify new drug targets and biomarkers. The study will enroll 7500 patients in Phase I, which may be extended to 10,000 patients in Phase II – we have already enrolled over 3000 patients well ahead of schedule.”
John Ryals, President and Chief Executive Officer of Metabolon, added, “We are happy to participate in such an important study. We anticipate the results to be highly impactful.” Eligible patients for the study undergo coronary computed tomographic angiography, which provides a detailed examination of the disease and disease status.
