Cambridge UK personalised medicines pioneer Horizon Discovery has formed a technology alliance with Bayer Pharma AG to tackle a major genomics conundrum.

The objective is to deliver high quality cell lines that more accurately model the disease-relevant mutations found in human tumors.

Using GENESIS, Horizon is able to alter any endogenous gene sequence of human or mammalian cell lines quickly, reliably and without unwanted and confounding genotypes and/or phenotypes.

With the ability to rapidly introduce one or more significant gain-of-function disease-relevant mutations (common in many forms of cancer), as well as loss-of-function alterations, into any endogenous gene loci of human cells, GENESIS can more accurately reflect patient genotypes in human cancer cell lines derived from human tumors.

Under the terms of the agreement, Horizon will apply GENESIS to develop human isogenic cell lines for use in Bayer’s oncology research and development programs.

Kam Dhaliwal, director of business development, Horizon, said: “We look forward to leveraging our genome engineering expertise to assist Bayer in finding novel potential drug candidates to address cancer. We are thrilled that Bayer selected Horizon to collaborate on its drug discovery programs, in recognition of our oncology disease expertise.”

Financial terms of the agreement are not being disclosed.