Syngene closes deal to buy Strand Life's bioinformatics platforms

The Bangalore-based contract research organisation (CRO) Syngene International Ltd, a Biocon company, has completed a deal through which it has purchased assets of Strand Life Sciences related to systems biology, Heptox and pharma bioinformatics services. This includes target dossier business and rights to NGS data analytics and Sarchitect platforms, supported by a strong scientific team. 

Jonathan Hunt, chief executive officer, Syngene International, said, “Given the vast volumes of genetic material sequence data that is being generated globally, there is an increasing focus on biological information management and data analytics in drug discovery and development. Syngene is constantly looking for new opportunities to expand its service offerings and plans to expand into areas such as NGS, translational R&D, predictive toxicology and pre-emptive target validation services, all of which require strong bioinformatics capabilities. We believe Strand’s bioinformatics platforms not only complement our existing integrated service platforms but will also meet our customers growing needs for bioinformatics and data analytic support.”

Dr Vijay Chandru, chairman and managing director of Strand Life Sciences, added, “This transaction is a key step for Strand to focus its energies on personalised medicine through clinical applications of all its genomics technologies.”

Bioinformatics is a rapidly emerging area that promises tremendous growth potential. Companies involved in pharmaceutical, cosmetics, FMCG and agro-biotech R&D have strong focus on genomics, and need sound bioinformatics applications and platforms for developing better therapeutics and products. According to Transparency Market Research, the global bioinformatics market was estimated at $ 2.3 billion in 2012 and is forecasted to reach a market size of $ 9.1 billion in 2018, at a CAGR of 25.4 percent.

This deal gives Syngene access to Strand Life’s patented Virtual Liver model and the NGS analytics platform. The Virtual Liver model is able to predict the toxic effect of different drugs or chemicals on the liver (both rat and human) using information from laboratory-based experiments prior to actual testing on live animals or humans. Strand NGS is an integrated platform that provides analysis, management and visualisation tools for next-generation sequencing data.