NEW YORK — Ardigen and The BioCollective said on Wednesday that they have partnered on the development of metagenomic biomarkers for Parkinson's disease.
Under the terms of the alliance, the companies will use Ardigen's artificial intelligence-based microbiome translational platform to analyze metagenomic and clinical data obtained through BioCollective's biobank of Parkinson's disease patient stool samples. Insights gained through the effort will be used to identify metagenomic indicators that can be used to diagnose early-onset Parkinson's disease, as well as disease-progression markers in the microbiome.
Both companies will provide resources and expertise to support the project. Additional terms were not disclosed.
"Parkinson's is an incredibly complex systemic disease, and clues to untangling that complexity are increasingly revealed in the microbiome," BioCollective CEO Martha Carlin said in a statement. "We believe that this partnership will help progress our collective understanding of the microbiome's role in human health."
A spinout of drug discovery firm Selvita, Krakow, Poland-based Ardigen received a grant earlier this year from the National Centre for Research and Development to help develop a cell-based phenotypic platform for various therapeutic areas.
In February, Denver-based BioCollective received a $1.2 million National Institutes of Health grant to develop a national reference standard for the microbiome.