Senesco Technologies has employed Cato Research to help it complete a preclinical animal model of a cancer target as well as toxicology studies with a view to filing of an investigational new drug application with the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
The company estimates that it will take around two years to undertake these processes, after which point, if all goes well, it will initiate a Phase I clinical trial.
This past week French firm Genoway said it has bagged a two year contract worth up to $2m (€1.4m) to provide customised genetically modified mouse lines to an undisclosed US biopharma firm.
The company added that the agreement may be upgraded at some point to include additional models.
Genoway CEO Alexandre Fraichard said that it was the firm's second multi-million dollar deal of the year, following a €1.1m contract awarded in May by the German National Genome Research Network to develop mouse models.
Meanwhile, a $7m contract has been awarded to Caliper Life Sciences by the US' National Institute of Environmental Health Services (NIEHS), under which Xenogen Biosciences, Caliper's in vivo drug discovery services arm, will supply genetically-modified mouse models based on the needs of the research teams at the NIEHS.
According to the NIEHS, the contract, which covers a period of up to ten years, was awarded to Caliper through a competitive bid process.
In other US news, the National Cancer Institute (NCI) has given biomarker testing firm Rules-Based Medicine (RBM) a $1.1m Phase I/II small business innovation research (SBIR) contract, which will allow the firm to develop 50 new quantitative, multiplexed immunoassays for cancer-related proteins to add to its automated human multi-analyte profile (HumanMAP) platform.
Under the deal, RBM will develop the tests for cancer biomarkers of special interest to NCI, but will also be available for use by the worldwide community of cancer researchers.
"Detecting cancer at the earliest stage when therapeutic intervention is most effective is the ultimate objective of this collaboration with NCI," said Craig Benson, CEO of RBM.
"To accurately measure cancer-related proteins in a reliable and cost-effective way is vital to NCI's research initiatives."