Bina Technologies has unveiled its first publicly known deal with a Big Pharma since it was bought by Roche ($RHHBY). The agreement sees AstraZeneca ($AZN) tighten its ties to the genomic data analysis platform provider by becoming the first member of the Bina Alliance Program.
Redwood City, CA-based Bina is setting up the alliance to support development of its Genomic Management Solution (GMS), the umbrella term covering its two modules, which perform read alignment and variant calling, and annotation and analytics, respectively. AstraZeneca is using GMS as an enterprise platform across its oncology, cardiovascular and respiratory R&D programs, therapeutic fields in which the company is going full tilt at creating a pipeline of more targeted, effective drugs.
With rivals pursuing similar goals--and AstraZeneca needing to live up to some lofty growth targets--speed is important. "In working with Bina, we can not only significantly accelerate the speed in which we incorporate genomic data into areas like target discovery and patient selection, but we can do this on top of a flexible, scalable and validated analysis infrastructure that our bench scientists can work with," AstraZeneca's principal translational genomic scientist, Justin Johnson, said in a statement.
AstraZeneca's willingness to deepen its relationship with Bina suggests that Roche's acquisition of the informatics platform provider isn't deterring other Big Pharma companies from working with the vendor. Roche promised to allow Bina to retain some operational independence--like AstraZeneca did when it bought Definiens--but this week's deal is the first public sign that the vendor's clients are comfortable with the arrangement.
- read the release
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