Nucleic acid transfection reagents are important for optimal delivery of antisense and siRNA molecules into mammalian cells
Atugen, a private company focused on the elucidation of disease pathways, has announced that it has granted Altana Pharma a non-exclusive licence to its nucleic acid transfection reagents for internal research purposes.
Atugen will receive an annual licensing fee plus fees for the reagents from Altana.
The Atugen nucleic acid transfection reagents are extremely important for optimal delivery of antisense and siRNA molecules into mammalian cells and will give Altana the scope to widen its research into determining the function of genes.
The new licence is an addition to the target validation agreement already ongoing between the two companies.
No financial details were.
"Atugen has a large number of proprietary transfection reagents for mammalian cell lines that research shows are the most efficient and low toxic nucleic acid delivery vehicles on the market and can be combined with siRNA as well as antisense molecules," Klaus Giese, chief scientific officer and vice president of research at Atugen commented.
"These first transfection reagents we are licencing are custom-made for each cell line to allow for continuous delivery of gene silencing molecules with transfection rates greater than 90%.
The ability to transfect not only tumorigenic or transformed cell lines but also primary cells significantly enlarges the scope of research".
Ulrich Thibaut, head of discovery research at Altana Pharma stated: "These optimised lipids from Atugen will enable us to fully exploit the high potential of oligonucleotide technologies for our drug discovery process."
