Briefs

NEW YORK, Sept. 30 - Affymetrix today said it has tapped tissue bank company Ardais to help it study cancer-related disease outcomes and drug responses.

Under the terms of the collaboration, Affy will use its GeneChip platform and Ardais' BIGR library of human tissue samples and accompanying clinical data, particularly those tied to an unspecified cancer, to run gene-expression profiles.

Ardais hopes to develop and license a nationwide repository of diseased human tissue samples--a market dominated by Gene Logic. With its own 10,000-sample tissue repository, for which it shelled out some $150 million to build, Gene Logic is already one of Affy's biggest customers and has built a strong reputation among researchers, hospitals, and big pharma.

Ardais, which raised about $45 million since 1999, might have a leg up on Gene Logic in one other way, Ferguson added: Researchers who currently use the repository can double-dip "into the same exact specimen" if they wish to perform follow-up research.

He added that it will begin collecting sera associated with the samples in its solid-tissue bank, and in the process dip a toe in Genomics Collaborative's market.

See www.ardais.com for more information.