Genaissance Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (Nasdaq: GNSC) announced today that it will provide its high-throughput genotyping services to Biotronics Ltd., headquartered in Nicosia, Cyprus, which has been awarded a contract by the Veterinary Services in the Ministry of Agriculture, Natural Resources & Environment as part of Cyprus' efforts to implement the European Union's (EU) mandate for establishing a breeding program in sheep that confers resistance to scrapie. Under the terms of the contract, Biotronics will collect the tissue specimens from the Veterinary Services and send them to Genaissance's genotyping facility in New Haven, CT, where Genaissance will analyze a minimum of 100,000 samples over approximately a three-month period of time. 

Scrapie is a fatal, degenerative disease affecting the central nervous system of sheep and goats. There is no scientific evidence to indicate that scrapie possesses a risk to human health, but the disease has serious economic consequences for sheep producers whose flocks become infected with the disease. Scientists have identified forms of a sheep gene that may determine a sheep's susceptibility to being infected with scrapie.