Shanghai GeneCore BioTechnologies Co., Ltd. (GeneCore) was established in Shanghai in 1997 as the first biotech/genomics company in China and a joint venture by the PE Applied Systems, Axys Pharmaceutical and SiniWest Holdings of the United States, with an initial investment of US$10 million. In 2003, Vita Genomics (Taiwan) acquired Shanghai GeneCore Biotechnologies. At present, the primary focus of GeneCore’s business is in the area of pharmacogenomics, examining the inherited variations in genes that dictate drug response, and exploring the ways these variations can be used to predict if a patient will have good response, ill response, or no response to a drug.
As both a conductor and a service provider in life science research, GeneCore is a leading genomics company in China. All major equipments of it are products of PE/ABI, including DNA sequencers, DNA Synthesizers, genetic analyzer, PCR machine, and protein sequencer. With these state-of-the-art facilities, GeneCore has been providing following services for more than ten years: (1) Large-scale and high throughput DNA sequencing; (2) Large-scale and high throughput SNP screening and genotyping; (3) Whole genome and individual STR scan for linkage analysis; (4) qPCR; (5) DNA primer and probe synthesis; (6) Protein sequencing.
While providing biotech services to the life science research society, GeneCore is actively cooperating with doctors from hospitals in China for developing genetic/genomic testings for personalized medicine with strong support from Vita Genomics. Successful examples include: 1) IrTaType which is developed for predicting responsiveness to Iressa or Tarceva in the treatment of NSCLC. This assay is designed to conduct by sequencing EGFR gene mutation regions of tissue samples. 2) HepaType which is developed for predicting responsiveness to interferon-alpha in the antiviral treatment of chronic HBV or HCV infection. This assay is designed to conduct by SNP genotyping with TaqMan method. In general, we are interested in working for genomics-guided personalized medicine, including pharmacogenomics for personalized use of medication and for rapid discovery of novel drugs, genomic testing for prediction of disease risk, and genetic testing for diagnosis of classical genetic disorders.
We seek to intimately participate in biomedical research, and to develop long-term, trusting, and mutually beneficial collaborations with CRO companies, biopharmaceutical companies, hospitals, and research institutions worldwide.
