Horizon to provide Sirion’s shRNA development services

In addition, Horizon’s customers can now access Sirion’s off-the-shelf validated shRNA and cDNA over-expression reagents.

Through the deal, Horizon will now offer a broad spectrum of gene modulation technologies ranging from stable shRNA knockdown and cDNA over-expression systems to the ability to edit endogenous genes via rAAV, ZFN and CRISPR platforms.

The company said that Sirion’s RNAiONE platform produces shRNAs with a gene silencing efficiency often greater than 90%.

Horizon Discovery vice president of Oncology Jon Moore said gene over-expression and knockdown studies are important to both basic and pre-clinical research, helping to determine the specific roles of genes and potentially leading to the discovery of novel targets for new drugs.

"Issues surrounding knockdown efficiency and the associated phenotypic variation have led to inconsistent results," Moore said.

"The high silencing efficiency ensured by RNAiONE gives researchers confidence in their functional genomics investigations."

The company will also be making available over 125 off-the-shelf RNAiONE validated shRNAs and over 70 cDNA overexpression constructs, which will be available as transduction ready lentivirus particles or as plasmids.

Horizon CEO Darrin Disley said the company is committed to offering products and services both in-house and through strategic partnerships that enable scientists to address their translational genomics needs.

"Following the recent announcement of our distributor agreement with Haplogen, the addition of Sirion’s products and the custom shRNA services to our commercial offering further extends our ability to fulfill this mission, as well as supporting Horizon’s overall growth strategy," Disley added.