Breaking out of the box

With its recent acquisitions of ChromaXome Corp. and Xenova Discovery Ltd., TerraGen Diversity Inc. believes it has broken free of the model of a tool company providing compound libraries to pharmaceutical partners. Through consolidation of complementary capabilities, TerraGen now sees itself as adding more value by conducting early discovery research on its natural and combinatorial compound collections to provide actual lead compounds for drug development.

TerraGen (Vancouver, B.C.) intends to change its name to TerraGen Discovery to reflect its new mission. It hopes that moving downstream will help separate the company from combinatorial biosynthesis competitors such as Diversa Corp. (San Diego, Calif.)...