Indena partners on the development of DNA authentication kits
26 Sep 2017 --- Indena, Hyris and NHP Research Alliance have signed a strategic cooperation agreement for the joint development of DNA authentication test kits for botanicals and related natural health products. The strategic partnership is intended to bring together the strengths of the two corporations alongside the consortium.
“What we are developing is a portable DNA analysis platform which is made available not only to experienced users like in the past, but also to inexperienced users and also untrained operators,” Hyris Ltd CTO Lorenzo Colombo (pictured below) told NutritionInsight earlier this year at Vitafoods Europe in Geneva.
According to Colombo, the kits can analyze anything that can contain DNA. “In the specific case of Indena, for example, one of the possible applications is quality certification of incoming raw materials,” Colombo said. “We can check for the DNA of the target species and also compare with other targets. We can make sure that the raw material is really what it’s declared to be, and also look for contaminants and counterfeiting and quantify it to understand how much of the contaminant is present.”
Capitalizing on strengths
The alliance is intended to make the most of Indena’s nearly 100 years’ experience in the botanical field and its commitment to the use of this technology for potentially problematic species. Indena says its contribution will be key to provide standard plant reference material resources that will include:
• Preparation of herbarium vouchers with ancillary information from the Indena supply chain.
• Professional taxonomic IDs.
• Genome scans (DNA sequences) for multiple populations to identify unique nucleotide signatures.
• Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) for a chemical fingerprint.
• Image scanning of samples and bioinformatics database archival with on-line access.
In parallel, the patented Hyris platform will offer the capability to perform full genetic analysis of biological samples in any kind of setting. It is said to incorporate all the needed hardware, software and reagents that can be used as a fully portable testing laboratory to provide highly accurate results, reducing the time and costs associated with traditional methods. It can be controlled by bAPP, a dedicated mobile app that provides a complete, intuitive, user-friendly interface.
“Indena, always seeking excellence and innovation, started integrating DNA sequencing into its Quality System in 2011. Today I am proud to announce that an exclusive partnership has been established with the scope of setting once again a forefront industry standard in the botanical authentication field,” says Daniele Giavini, Indena Managing Director.
“Hyris is honored to join this world-class team as a key technology provider,” adds Stefano Lo Priore, Hyris Ltd. CEO. “We look forward supporting the botanicals industry worldwide and help streamline DNA based quality control systems throughout the supply chain.”
Helping research alliance
Indena and Hyris will provide their expertise in order to strengthen the NHP Research Alliance launched by the University of Guelph, called a leader in DNA-based identification. The three strategic partners hold exclusive technological and scientific assets that are now merging together to build a reliable third-party verification program that will benefit the natural health product (NHP) industry.
“Indena/Hyris are Strategic members in the NHP Research Alliance focused on the development of molecular diagnostic biotechnology (bCUBE and probes/kits) that will eventually transform the NHP Industry in a new gold standard for botanical species authentication; affordable testing on-site that is validated by a third-party TRU-ID,” says Dr. Steven Newmaster, Professor, Botanical Director, Centre for Biodiversity Genomics, University of Guelph.
NutritionInsight caught up with Indena Marketing Director Cosimo Palumbo recently to talk about the potential for digestive health plant extracts. The video can be found here.
Indena is the leading company dedicated to the identification, development and production of high quality active principles for the pharmaceutical and health food industries. In particular, Indena offers for the nutritional field botanical extracts from edible plants, with a full phytochemical characterization, safe and supported by advanced human studies. Backed up by almost a century of botanical experience, the Italian privately owned company invests a significant amount of its annual turnover in research, making this activity the key to its success.
Phyto-chemical research is carried out in Indena's own Research Center in Settala, Italy. Indena also co-operates with the world's most prestige universities and private research institutes in the biological assessment of the safety and effectiveness of its products up to clinical phase I/II.
A key strategic research objective is the development of new active principles for pharmaceutical applications. This also forms an indispensable base for the health-food and personal care industries.
The pharmaceutical side of the company is focused mainly on anti-cancer drugs, which are produced to US-FDA, ICH and EU standards at Indena's High Containment Manufacturing facilities in Settala, Italy. Indena's drug discovery strategy is to develop new chemical entities up to "Phase I/II" of clinical studies, and then license them to pharmaceutical companies.
Today Indena is also concentrating its efforts on the industrial production of high-quality standardised botanical derivatives, which are important ingredients in health food products. In fact, the company produces standardised extracts from edible plants that are traditionally recognised as having therapeutic properties, as well as from plants that have proven pharmacological value. Indena's research and production activities are particularly attentive to plant-based principles that have anti-oxidant properties and prevent damage caused by free radicals.
Backed by more than 90 years of botanical experience, Indena has developed a plantation network, managed by experts, to supply its research and production centres with officinal plants, while ensuring bio-diversity and protecting the ecosystem from uncontrolled harvesting. Today more than 60% of the raw material used in manufacturing comes from cultivations.
Indena's decades-long global presence in the plant extraction industry is a guarantee of its in-depth knowledge and understanding of the business, market trends and legal considerations. There is constant communication and interaction between the company's experts, who cooperate on the updating of all the main pharmacopoeias, and the major international regulatory authorities such as WHO, EMA, and ESCOP. The company has more than 150 primary patents and has published more than 700 scientific studies.
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