Varian, Inc. Invests in Chenomx, Inc.

07-Apr-2004

Varian, Inc. and Chenomx, Inc. announced that Varian, Inc. has made a strategic equity investment in Chenomx, Inc., a privately held company that is a leader in the rapidly growing field of metabolic profiling. Chenomx's "Eclipse" bioprofiling software can be used with data acquired from Varian, Inc. 400 MHz to 800 MHz nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectrometers for metabonomic studies conducted by pharmaceutical companies.

Varian, Inc. and Chenomx, Inc. entered into a distribution agreement in September 2003 in which Varian, Inc. markets the Eclipse software worldwide.

Metabolic profiling, or metabonomics, is the study of low molecular-weight chemicals, known as metabolites, found in a living organism. Metabolite levels can differ due to a variety of effects, such as drug ingestion, hence metabolic profiling is used to evaluate the efficacy or toxicity of drug candidates, helping researchers develop safer and more effective pharmaceuticals.

"NMR is an increasingly critical tool for pharmaceutical companies doing metabolic profiling as part of their drug discovery and development process," said Janice Tschida, vice president and general manager, Varian NMR Systems. "The Chenomx software allows us to deliver a complete information-rich solution to a broad range of life sciences customers, especially those looking to enhance the speed and results of their safety and toxicity studies. Varian, Inc.'s investment in Chenomx will enable Chenomx to accelerate their research and development efforts and further expand the capabilities of the software."

"Chenomx and Varian have worked together developing metabonomics applications for a number of years, and we are excited by the prospects posed by enhancing this relationship," said Neil Taylor, President of Chenomx. "With this investment, we will be able to further advance our products and their applications in fields such as marker identification and clinical diagnostics."

NMR data can be particularly informative in metabonomics, since the metabolites in a bio-fluid sample can be viewed and quantified with just one experiment. When this information is gathered from a number of samples, it can be used to generate a series of metabolic profiles that correspond to different drugs, diseases or other causes of biochemical change.

Chenomx's "Eclipse" software uses proprietary mathematical algorithms to separate the individual metabolite signals from the mixture of metabolites that occur in urine or blood. It then analyzes the separate components using sophisticated databases. When combined with NMR spectra generated by Varian, Inc. spectrometers, this provides a one-step analysis that can correlate with a drug's efficacy or toxicity. Varian, Inc.'s NMR spectrometers are well-known for their sensitivity and flexibility and are used for a broad number of small molecule and proteomics applications.

https://www.analytica-world.com/en/news/36590/varian-inc-invests-in-chenomx-inc.html