Taconic - Smart Solutions to Improve Human Health

Taconic, one of the largest laboratory rodent providers in the world, offers quality animal models and services that can help you accelerate your research and improve your position in a competitive market.

Taconic provides smart solutions to improve human health. With the right model on the right timeline, investigators can obtain insightful data faster, reduce research costs and minimise the risk and consequences of late-stage failures.

Speeding up drug discovery

The pharmaceutical industry is facing unprecedented competitive pressures and economic challenges which make the ability to streamline and improve efficiency and productivity of drug discovery more vital than ever. Advanced animal model generation and production technologies can change the game for investigators, accelerating drug discovery and optimising research success.

Lab animal models continue to play a key role in the success of in vivo studies. As important as the model's suitability is access on a fast timeline, since speed of access directly affects the speed of drug discovery, the cost of drug development and time-to-market with new, competitive products. Through advances in the technologies used to design, generate and produce lab mice and rat models, investigators can leverage sophisticated tools to improve drug discovery and gain a competitive advantage.

Custom generated models for drug discovery

Genetic engineering advances have made it possible to develop models precisely suited to a specific in vivo study. New, sophisticated technologies like those employed by Taconic greatly reduce lead times of custom model design and development, facilitating faster, easier access to off-the-shelf and custom generated models.

Gene mutation technologies

Various targeted gene mutation technologies offered by Taconic facilitate faster development of custom models for target validation. These include constitutive or conditional gene knockout, conditional knockout with a Cre-ER gene switch and targeted transgenesis, an efficient method for introducing transgenes into the genome. To improve compound testing and target validation, leading pharmaceutical companies also turn to advanced targeted gene replacement technologies, including constitutive knock-in of a gene, humanisation and humanisation with optional conditional knockout. Perhaps the most cutting-edge technology to influence gene expression today is transgenic in vivo RNA inhibition. This technique involves inducing and reversing gene knockdown in adult mice, enabling greater insights into drug and target-related disease mechanisms.

Knockout rat models

Other model generation technologies allow researchers to eliminate custom development in some cases. Through off-the-shelf repositories of knockout mice and rats, Taconic helps accelerate drug discovery and speed up time-to-market by eliminating custom development lead times. Knockout mice focus on knocking out novel protein targets in gene classes known to be amenable to pharmaceutical intervention. The availability of knockout rat models is a recent development, enabling the use of knockouts in studies in which rats are the preferred model.

Analogue-sensitive kinase alleles

Targeting individual kinases is valuable for drug research, but designing drugs that only impact a single kinase has proven challenging. Now, technologies like those used at Taconic facilitate the development of models that inhibit a single kinase, empowering investigators to mimic exactly what occurs when a drug inhibits only that kinase in a clinical setting.

Appropriate for target validation and compound testing, the generation of analogue-sensitive kinase alleles in Taconic's KinaseSwitch mice slightly modifies only the chosen kinase, making it sensitive to a well-characterised small molecule inhibitor without altering its function. This unique approach allows researchers to analyse a kinase's function in vivo, make more accurate predictions about a drug's efficacy and determine if inhibition will cause undesirable side effects. By enabling the study of kinases so precisely and under physiologically relevant conditions, these models can greatly speed up research and improve drug discovery.

Transgenic animal models and light-producing transgenics

Transgenic animal models have always proven invaluable to drug discovery since they enable altering specific genetic characteristics to produce a disease-specific model uniquely suited to a study's focus. The Taconic Transgenic Model™ programme offers fully-licensed, off-the-shelf transgenics that eliminate the need to find, license and breed the right model and have long proven a staple for researchers. Now, technology is taking the use of transgenics to the next level.

Bioluminescent technology makes it possible to generate light-producing, disease-specific models that greatly aid in disease research and toxicology studies. Light-producing transgenics are especially suited to oncology, inflammation, endocrine and metabolic disease research, as well as imaging studies in these areas.

Outsourcing animal breeding

Outsourcing animal breeding to a trusted partner enables investigators to obtain animals quickly and cost-effectively and free up space for research use. Taconic's completely customised programmes and our scientific experts in breeding, genetics and health allow investigators the flexibility to have a vendor manage their breeding programmes in sync with research project needs. By outsourcing colony production, organisations can relieve in-house capacity constraints, reduce breeding costs and keep staff focused on the core business of research.

All this is done while simultaneously improving a line's health status before breeding. For most breeding programmes, a derivation of the line is conducted to assure health integrity. Taconic's industry-leading IVF technology assures that this step can be completed quickly to keep your project on track. To protect the investment in a line, sperm or embryos can be cryopreserved, providing insurance against genetic drift, enabling start-up of a line if needed, and preserving lines not currently in use for later access.

As drug discovery grows more complex, it's critical to rely on easy access to the most relevant animal models on the right timelines. Taconic's technologies turn that goal into reality.

Taconic Worldwide Headquarters
One Hudson City Centre
Hudson
NY 12534
Tel: 518 697 3900
Fax: 518 697 3905
www.taconic.com
custserv@taconic.com

European Headquarters
Tornbjergvej 40
Ejby
4623 Lille Skensved
Denmark
Tel: +45 70 23 04 05
Fax: +45 56 86 14 20
taconiceurope@taconic.com