BioWorld International Correspondent

BORNHEIM, Germany - LION bioscience AG plans to spend EUR8.75 million (US$8 million) to acquire 16.1 percent of the shares of Gesellschaft f|r Medizinische Datenverarbeitung (GMD), which is a specialist in medical data management software.

For LION, of Heidelberg, Germany, the deal includes the chance to grow into the market for individualized patient care systems, and improve efficacy of clinical trials, LION's investor relations manager, Alexander Asam, told BioWorld International. "This will be a very interesting market in three to five years."

GMD, of Munich, provides hospitals throughout Germany, France and the U.S. with medical information management technology including web-based electronic patient files, which assist medical professionals in gathering and managing documentation in diagnosis, therapy and accounting. LION and GMD also want to provide electronic patient files for family doctors.

"This infrastructure will enable us to correlate the phenotype of a patient to its genotype," Asam said. "The doctors have to record medical data anyway. What is needed in addition now is genetic profiling from minimum blood samples."

Technically, such profiling could be done inside the clinic or by external companies.

In a joint pilot, project LION and GMD intend to develop software modules, which bring together patients' data and their genetic profile and thus help trace causes of diseases.

Data generated by such correlation also could be used for pharmacogenetic profiles and prediction of efficacy or drug side effects in individuals.

"Doctors could offer tailor-suited therapies to their patients," Asam said. Patients' genetic profiles also could provide information on individual health risk. "We'd have to accept a patient's decision, if he doesn't want to be informed about such risks. Participating in profiling must be on a volunteer basis."

For clinical research, having integrated data within the hospital could allow doctors to identify proper candidates for the testing of novel diagnostics and therapies, allowing trials to be conducted more efficiently and more rapidly.

Depending on the results of the pilot project, LION retains the right to acquire an additional 9 percent of GMD's shares via a call option limited until June 30, 2002.