Horizon Discovery Group and Adarza BioSystems have announced that they have entered into an exclusive licensing and supply agreement. The agreement gives Horizon exclusive rights to supply services for Adarza's breakthrough multiplex immunoassay technology, Arrayed Imaging Reflectometry (AIR). The technology offers a powerful tool for stratification of patients and samples based on very small blood volumes, an increasingly vital step in the development of personalized medicines.

As per the agreement, Horizon customers will be able to access leading protein biomarker discovery and validation capabilities alongside the broad menu of technology enabled services already available including; in vitro and in vivo gene-editing, phenotypic cell-based assay development, target identification and validation, chemical and biological agent screening, and high throughput drug combination screening.

Dr Darrin M Disley, CEO, Horizon Discovery Group, said, "The ability to stratify populations that respond to drugs with the aid of blood-based biomarkers is becoming a critical part of developing better and more efficacious therapies. Horizon is committed to remaining at the forefront of high value technological advances that address our customers' research needs. The addition of AIR technology to our offering supports our growth strategy and is highly complementary to our current portfolio."

Dr Preston Keller, vice president of business development at Adarza BioSystems said, "We are delighted to be working with one of the world's fastest-growing lifescience companies dedicated to driving forward the fields of gene editing and translational genomics. The agreement with Horizon validates Adarza's disruptive technology platform and allows us to leverage Horizon's world class sales and marketing network to bring the technology to market sooner and much more broadly than we could alone."