Bristol-Myers Squibb subscribes to LifeSpan's GPCR localization database
Under the terms of the agreement, Bristol-Myers Squibb will receive early access to localization data on GPCR targets in real-time and will be able to prioritize which GPCR genes it selects from the database based on its internal interests. Other subscribers to the GPCR database include Pfizer, Merck and Novartis.
"This agreement (with LifeSpan BioSciences) provides Bristol-Myers Squibb with access to human gene expression data in tissues important in health and disease, and will aid our efforts in validating new drug targets," said Mark Cockett, Executive Director, Functional Genomics of Bristol-Myers Squibb.
"As a consequence of the genomics revolution, our customers find themselves swimming in a sea of genes," said Joseph Brown, President and CEO of LifeSpan BioSciences. "LifeSpan's molecular pathology approach provides the next generation of information that allows pharmaceutical companies to prioritize the best potential drug targets from among the many candidates identified by high-throughput sequencing and gene chips."
LifeSpan uses specific antibodies together with its bank of normal and pathological tissue specimens to measure expression of GPCRs in a range of normal and disease tissues. These results are then interpreted by LifeSpan's pathologists and used to construct a database containing GPCR expression information of each cell type.