2011 – Horizon Discovery

Horizon Discovery followed its Business Weekly Awards success by winning a Queen’s Award for Enterprise. Horizon provides research tools to support translational genomics research and the development of personalised medicines.

Using its proprietary rAAV gene-editing technology, GENESIS, Horizon can alter any endogenous gene sequence of a human or mammalian cell line quickly and without introducing unwanted and confounding genotypes or phenotypes. Horizon has applied GENESIS to create over 400 X-MAN cell lines, accurately modelling the disease-causing mutations found in cancer patients.

These ‘patients-in-a-test-tube’ are used by academic and industry leaders to identify the effect of individual or compound genetic mutations on drug activity, patient responsiveness, and resistance, leading to the successful prediction of which patient sub-groups will respond to currently-available and future drug treatments.

This enables the design of shorter, more focused, and less expensive clinical trials, providing the tools to identify the ‘right drugs’ for the ‘right patients’ based on the unique genetic mutations that define their disease.www.horizondiscovery.com