AstraZeneca funds twin registry in exchange for information

AP 26jun02

STOCKHOLM, Sweden - Drug maker AstraZeneca PLC said Wednesday that it has agreed to fund a comprehensive Swedish database on twins in exchange for access to statistical information from the registry.

The Karolinska Institute in Stockholm started collecting data on a voluntary basis from Swedish twins in the 1950s. The registry — one of the largest of its kind — now contains information ranging from tobacco habits to medical histories of about 140,000 twins.

AstraZeneca will use the information, which will not include identities, to study several diseases, including cancer, spokeswoman Maria Anvret said.

The history of identical twins, for example, could help researchers separate genetic from environmental links to a certain disease.

"If one twin is exposed to different environmental experiences than the other, researchers can explain more precisely why one individual suffers from a disease while the other does not," she said.

Anvret said AstraZeneca would fund the maintenance of the database for at least five years. Both AstraZeneca and Karolinska declined to release financial details.

Nancy Pedersen, who is in charge of the twin registry at the institute, said some of the funding could be used to add genetic information to the database by collecting blood samples from twins.

The current information in the database is based on personal surveys, she said.

The Karolinska Institute accounts for 40 percent of all medical research at universities in Sweden and chooses the winner of the annual Nobel Prize in medicine.

AstraZeneca, which was formed in 1999 through the merger ( news - web sites) of Astra of Sweden and the Zeneca Group of Britain, has 54,000 employees worldwide.