Fairbanks Institute and BioServe to co-market next generation biorepository, INbank

Mar 31 2010

The Fairbanks Institute for Healthy Communities, the Indianapolis not-for-profit organization working to improve community health,  and BioServe, a global provider of biomaterial and genetic research services, today announced that they will co-market INbank™, a next generation biorepository that was recently launched by The Fairbanks Institute. This deal will help to make INbank's™ information rich biological samples widely available to researchers worldwide seeking new tools in the development of personalized medicine.

INbank™ is made possible by the Indiana Health Study, a longitudinal cohort study of the Central Indiana population sponsored by the Fairbanks Institute.  Biological samples collected in the Indiana Health Study are connected to information available in patient histories and clinical outcomes data to enable research and development of new and more effective ways to prevent, diagnose and treat chronic diseases.  The Fairbanks Institute currently has longitudinal cohort studies underway focusing on coronary artery disease and type 2 diabetes.  

"We are very excited to have BioServe's help in making INbank™ available to researchers in industry, academic and government laboratories," said Cynthia Helphingstine, PhD, President and CEO of the Fairbanks Institute. "Their expertise in biological samples will help to maximize the scientific impact of INbank™ on the development of new diagnostics and therapeutics for chronic diseases."

The updated clinical information on participants in the Indiana Health Study comes from the Indiana Network for Patient Care (INPC), a metropolitan Indianapolis-based electronic medical record created in 1994 by the Regenstrief Institute, Inc. to support patient care, research, quality and improvements in public health. The INPC's ever-expanding longitudinal patient data system includes clinical data from over forty hospitals, data from payors, prescription data from pharmacy benefit managers and pharmacies, and public health data.

BioServe with headquarters in Beltsville, MD and Hyderabad, India, is a comprehensive provider of biomaterial and services that help researchers gain the pre-clinical data needed for breakthroughs in drug discovery, molecular diagnostics and pharmacogenomics.  BioServe's Global BioRepository® provides researchers with a library of 600,000 human DNA, tissue and serum samples linked to detailed clinical and demographic data from 120,000 consented and anonymized patients from four continents.  BioServe's President and CEO Rama Modali said, "BioServe has been providing researchers with high quality, well-annotated and clinically relevant biological specimens to accelerate breakthroughs in research, drug discovery and molecular diagnostics for many years. It is a natural progression for us to partner with the Fairbanks Institute to bring INbank™'s  data-rich biological samples to our customers."