Nanogen acquired rights to genetic markers related to schizophrenia and responses to antipsychotic therapies from the Co-operative Research Centre for Diagnostics and Queensland University of Technology in Australia.
Nanogen plans to utilize the markers to create diagnostic tests. Some of these markers may also help predict adverse drug reactions and therefore guide therapeutic decision-making.
"Due to its complexity—schizophrenia, like many mental disorders, is believed to be caused by mutations in multiple genes— development of effective diagnostics and treatments is likely to require multiplexed analytic methods capable of examining multiple genes simultaneously," remarks David Ludvigson, Nanogen's president and COO.