Overview

Devgen NV was founded in December 1997 as a drug and target discovery company. It industrializes the model organism Caenorhabditis elegans to accelerate discovery of relevant drug targets and novel small-molecule drugs for the pharmaceutical and agrochemical industries.

Devgen’s approach involves determining the function of genes, assigning the genes to pathways and then identifying the key switches in the pathways. The company uses its knockdown technology and comparative genomics tool, which rapidly identifies human homologues of the selected targets’ in vitro or in vivo assays, with the human targets, which are then configured to perform target-specific high-throughput screening and to initiate drug discovery programs.

Devgen’s strategy is to identify targets and lead compounds for in-house research programs directed at specific diseases, while making its technology platform available to corporate partners. Its own research programs are focused on CNS, diabetes and metabolic disorders, cardiovascular disease, and apoptosis-related, gastrointestinal and PKD-renal diseases. It aims to identify targets and compounds for licensing out to pharmaceutical companies and does not intend to enter drug development itself.

Partners

Research collaboration to evaluate the other’s compounds in hopes of more rapidly assessing potential therapeutic utility of those compounds in diabetes: Metabolex Inc.

Enlarged original 1999 research collaboration aimed at discovering novel pesticides: Agricultural Products Group of FMC Corp.

Devgen signed on Janssen Pharmaceutica NV, a unit of Johnson & Johnson, as its first corporate partner in April 1998 in a collaboration focusing on oncology and migration-related diseases. Devgen has research and licensing agreements with other research establishments in Europe and the United States.