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Rockville-based Vanda Pharmaceuticals is partnering with Laboratory Corporation of America Holdings of Burlington, N.C., to apply information Vanda discovered as it developed a drug candidate for schizophrenia toward genetic testing. Vanda was working on Fanapta, an antipsychotic drug still under review by the Federal Drug Administration.
The plan is to work with LabCorp on commercializing a series of diagnostic tests to pick out these markers, according to a Thursday press release. Financial terms of the arrangement were not disclosed.
Vanda Pharmaceuticals did not return calls seeking comment Thursday.
The mental disorder schizophrenia affects more than 2 million Americans. Genetics is known to contribute to one’s risk of developing schizophrenia, said Dr. Jeffery Lieberman, chair of psychiatry at Columbia University, but that there is no proven genetic marker at this point that indicates the potential for the disease.
“Everyone’s fascinated with the Human Genome Project and genotyping,” Lieberman said. “But for mental illness, there is absolutely nothing which has been significantly validated in a way that is clinically informative yet.”
melissa.frederick@dcexaminer.com



Comments from Examiner Readers
3:51 PM MST on Wed., Jun. 18, 2008 re: "O’Malley announces initiative to boost bioscience industry"
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9:51 AM MST on Wed., Jun. 18, 2008
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5:52 AM MST on Wed., Jun. 18, 2008
re: "O’Malley to promote state’s leadership in biosciences at San Diego convention"
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1:10 PM MST on Tue., Jun. 17, 2008
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8:39 PM MST on Sun., Jun. 8, 2008
re: "Vanda, LabCorp to pursue genetic test for treatment of schizophrenia patients"
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Examiner Reader said:
I hope he is working on behalf of Delaware and decides to go there with the new businesses he attracts. Just another excuse for the Big Guy to travel. Works for me- anything to get him out of Maryland.
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AMERICA CALLING said:
are we sure the gov is not trying to escape from the dixon scandel thing he may really going to ny you all know what i mean
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Examiner Reader said:
omalley likes to travel doesn't hel
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Examiner Reader said:
Its pretty sad that the Examiner failed to even comment on the type of stem cells the initiative would be testing on. Media has made up their mind so they won't even cover the fact that there is dissent froma large majority of the populace when it comes to testing on embryonic stem cells.
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tiberianfallout said:
in 100 years, your all going to look pretty silly.
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