Horizon Discovery Announces a Progress Update on its Cell Line Catalogue Business

Horizon Discovery Group plc ("Horizon" or the “Company”), a world leader in the application of gene editing technologies, has provided an update on the commercial operation of its catalogue cell line business through the offering of Cell Bank subscriptions, which have generated over £0.7m in revenue since launch in Q3 2016.

Horizon’s new Cell Bank subscription programme was launched with the intent to seed Horizon’s knockout cell lines more broadly throughout the drug development industry. Since the launch of the programme in Q3 2016 uptake has been robust, with four Cell Bank access licenses closed providing over £0.7m in total revenue at a high margin, and a strong pipeline in place for H1 2017.

X-MAN® cell lines are provided to commercial customers under licenses that require annual renewal. Targets or genes of interest often change as research and drug development programmes progress however, and cell lines that were critical at the early stages of a project may become redundant. Under the new Cell Bank subscription licenses, knockout cell lines (cells where a specific gene is rendered non-functional) can be exchanged twice, effectively allowing 3 cell lines to be accessed under each license as a customer’s research develops. The basic subscription package consists of 20 cell lines, and larger packages up to comprehensive access to our full catalogue of knockout cell lines are available.

Horizon builds genetically-engineered models of disease in the form of cells that customers use to gain knowledge of the genetic drivers of disease and to develop novel drugs or cell therapies targeted at these genetic drivers. The scale of Horizon’s library of engineered X-MAN catalogue cell lines is unequalled, consisting of over 23,000 cell line pairs.

Dr. Darrin Disley, Chief Executive Officer, Horizon Discovery, commented: “The launch of the Cell Bank subscription programme solves one of the main challenges facing commercial customers looking to apply Horizon’s X-MAN cell lines in their programmes. With convincing early success in place and a strong pipeline of additional subscriptions in progress, Horizon is well positioned to drive further high volume, high margin business from our engineered cell line catalogue in 2017.”