LONDON (Alliance News) - Tiziana Life Sciences PLC on Monday said it has set up an Italian subsidiary after buying assets from Sardinian-based biobanking & genomics research company Shardna SpA.
Shares in Tiziana were trading up 7.1% at 157.96 pence on Monday morning.
The biotechnology company bought assets worth EUR258,000 from Shardna, and has established LonGevia Genomics Srl specifically to develop those assets to identify novel drug targets and diagnostic applications.
The Shardna biobank includes 230,000 biological samples from the almost 13,000 fully genealogically linked residents of the Ogliastra region of Sardinia. Data from the genetically homogenous community traces back genealogy over four hundred years. The Ogliastra region has a prevalence of centenarians almost 50 times that of the US or UK, with its inhabitants having the second-highest longevity in the world after Okinawa Island in Japan.
"The acquisition of Shardna represents an opportunity to study a unique collection of DNA samples from a homogeneous and well-characterised population. This could advance our understanding of aging and other key pathophysiological processes and potentially result in diagnostic and therapeutic advances," said Napoleone Ferrara, a member of Tiziana's scientific advisory board.
"This transaction provides access to a unique bio-repository, which we can now leverage and combine the massive power and low cost of next generation gene sequencing with the full complement of "-omics" technologies. The opportunity is to generate valuable insights into gene regulatory networks, genotype-phenotype linkage and gene-environment interactions that will feed into and inform our drug discovery and diagnostic programmes," Founder and Chairman Gabriele Cerrone said.
By Karolina Kaminska; karolinakaminska@alliancenews.com @KarolinaAllNews
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