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Great things on Horizon for Cambridge firm

Written by News Desk
Wednesday, 09 April 2008
Cambridge based Horizon Discovery is moving towards a world lead in the potential discovery of new and more effective personalised medicines by the pharmaceutical industry. The nine month-old company is pioneering a novel gene-engineering technology that creates genetically-defined human disease models called ‘isogenic’ cell-lines. These provide the first accurate laboratory based models of human genetic diseases and their matched normal cell-types so will speed-up and reduce the cost of discovering novel ‘personalised’ drugs that target the fundamental causes of diseases such as cancer. Horizon has already demonstrated its commercial potential with notable agreements and licences to large pharma and biotech companies. It has just agreed a co-marketing and distribution relationship with a multi-national Life Science company, which will see its products and services reach a global audience. Its international push has been boosted by a further investment of £100,000 from Cambridge Enterprise Seed Funds. The cash injection will support activity to close further significant third party deals, establish wet lab facilities and consolidate the company’s IP portfolio. Cambridge Enterprise Seed Funds first supported Horizon Discovery with a convertible loan last July. The latest funding has attracted interest from others, with Abcam founder and chief executive Dr Jonathan Milner, who has a research background in genes and proteins associated with human cancers, making an investment of £50,000. Set as favorite Bookmark Email This Hits: 254 Trackback(0) TrackBack URI for this entry Comments (0) Subscribe to this comment's feed Show/Hide comments Write comment Show/Hide comment form This content has been locked. You can no longer post any comment.