DSM invests EUR 2 million in Finnish genetic discovery company
DSM Venturing, the corporate venturing unit of Royal DSM N.V., announced that it has made an equity investment of EUR 2 million in Jurilab Oy, a Finnish company specialized in the discovery of gene-disease associations and their application to healthcare. Following investments in Sciona and Integragen, this is DSM's third equity investment in Personalized Nutrition, one of the Emerging Business Areas (EBAs) selected in DSM's strategy Vision 2010 - Building on Strengths.
Jurilab specializes in the identification of metabolic disease markers and pathways, drug targets and diagnostic content. These metabolic diseases and conditions are captured under the label metabolic syndrome or syndrome X and comprise obesity, type 2 diabetes, dyslipidemia and hypertension. These are all conditions with a high incidence, creating a major healthcare concern which is expected to grow even further with the ageing of the population and increasing health and wellness awareness. So far Jurilab's discovery programs have resulted in dozens of patent applications covering thousands of disease or trait genes.
About a year ago DSM and Jurilab started a joint discovery program in the area of Hypertension. In the longer term this is expected to help DSM achieve its ambition to develop innovative nutritional products and integrated services that fit individual consumers' genetic profiles and other factors, such as age and lifestyle. Additional areas of collaboration are expected to result from this investment.
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