CuraGen Corp. said it signed a deal with Cambridge, England-based Gemini Genomics plc to combine single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) with clinical data to identify and validate drug targets.

Terms were not released, but CuraGen, of New Haven, Conn., said the collaboration is the largest such pact so far, based on the amount of information to be analyzed.

¿No money is changing hands,¿ said CuraGen spokesman Mark Vincent. ¿The results will be commercialized, and that¿s where the revenues come in.¿ Costs of analysis will be split between the two companies.

Gemini has the largest database in existence of fraternal twins, analyzing 160 points of interest, ¿everything from bone density to DNA sequences,¿ Vincent said. ¿And we¿ve got the largest database of genetic variations, derived from protein coding of the disease. Now, we can go into a population, look for those SNPs, and see if we can correlate it with a disease [that developed in particular twins].¿

Since the twins are fraternal, each is exposed to the same influences in the mother¿s womb, but then were subject to varying environmental influences, providing a good sample for fast, computerized SNP comparisons, he added. CuraGen¿s database contains more than 120,000 genetic variations.

¿Nobody¿s ever done anything like this,¿ Vincent said.

CuraGen¿s stock (NASDAQ:CRGN) closed Monday at $46.312, down 43.7 cents. ¿ Randall Osborne