Ann Arbor-based Velcura Therapeutics Inc. said Tuesday that it had established a new Bone Therapy Evaluation Group to act as a service component of the company and allow rapid testing of potential therapies for osteoporosis and other bone diseases. Velcura has pioneered the use of human bone cells as targets for drug discovery applications. The evaluation group will use Velcura's cell-based technologies to provide rapid drug optimization studies, drug target identification, method of action analysis and more. Velcura has also developed an OsteoChip, a customized DNA array that uses the Affymetrix GeneChip microarray technology and which contains 1,500 genes that are modulated in human bone formation. "The availability of the Bone Therapy Evaluation service allows Velcura to assist biopharmaceutical companies in their drug development process," said Velcura CEO Michael W. Long. "We have had many requests for access to our technologies and our new OsteoChip to speed r esearch to help fight bone diseases. Establishing a drug evaluation program allows us to more rapidly respond to questions of our pharmaceutical clients in a straightforward and simple manner."