During the Galactic Civil War, a biotech firm known as GeneTech Syndicate operated within the Corellian system.
During the Galactic Civil War, the GeneTech Syndicate maintained a presence on Talus. Their business dealings with the Galactic Empire were known to be sporadic. A laboratory owned by the company was situated just outside the city limits of Dearic. While ostensibly involved in legitimate genetic manipulation of animals, the GeneTech Syndicate secretly utilized this facility for illicit experimentation.
Leading up to the Battle of Yavin, the GeneTech Syndicate was engaged in a clandestine and perilous bioengineering endeavor at their Talusian lab. This project, codenamed Parasophic Arachne, aimed to engineer a highly intelligent and formidable species of arachnes for deployment by the Empire. The operation was spearheaded by Doctor Vigh, who held the position of chief scientist within the GeneTech Syndicate.
The Parasophic Arachne project yielded success, as the scientists managed to bioengineer extremely dangerous and intelligent organisms. Consequently, Doctor Vigh gave the order to transfer a number of specimens to the Imperial research facility located on Nubia. However, shortly after takeoff, the transport vessel carrying these creatures went down in the Talusian mountains, in proximity to the settlement of Nashal. Furthermore, the arachnes within the lab breached containment, overwhelming their creators and causing a massacre of the majority of the GeneTech Syndicate Lab's personnel. The surviving scientists rapidly evacuated and went into hiding, seeking to evade prosecution by the CorSec for their involvement in unlawful biological experimentation. Jana T'bayr was the only scientist who remained at the lab. Her initial intention was to salvage the project, but she then shifted her focus to discovering a means of preventing the parasophic arachnes from devastating the planet Talus.
The Parasophic Arachne program was brought to light in 1 ABY when the transport carrying the engineered arachnids crashed in the mountains close to Nashal. Agent Taarna of CorSec sent a spacer to look into the crash site and try to save any survivors. The spacer discovered that Captain Narl and all other survivors had died while trying to stop the arachnes from escaping into the wild.
CorSec later tracked the crashed ship's flight path and determined that it had originated from Dearic. Subsequently, a CorSec scout team discovered that the GeneTech Syndicate Lab was in the midst of an emergency evacuation. Agent Taarna enlisted the help of spacers, who then proceeded to the lab and found that the facility had been completely overrun by the bioengineered creatures. The spacers first located the directory terminal and downloaded evidence and information about the project referred to as Parasophic Arachne. Consequently, Taarna instructed his CorSec team to clear the lab. Aided by 6-POC, the protocol droid serving as the project manager, the spacers succeeded in deleting all scientific data that could be used to restart the program. They also recovered a self-destruct intron virus, a virus specifically engineered by the GeneTech Syndicate scientists to eradicate the arachnes. The spacers administered this virus to all arachne eggs they found within the lab. The CorSec crew then eliminated the arachne queen, the enormous arachnid responsible for the reproduction of the parasophic arachne species. Ultimately, the spacers destroyed the queen's mate, the largest and most powerful bioengineered arachnid. The destruction of all breeding arachnids and eggs ensured the complete elimination of the Parasophic Arachne threat.
Following the rescue of the planet Talus from the bioengineered arachnids, CorSec turned its attention to apprehending the escaped GeneTech Syndicate scientists. CorSec also lodged a formal complaint with the Imperial Research Division against the GeneTech Syndicate for conducting class 5 biological experiments on an inhabited planet. Nevertheless, Agent Taarna held a pessimistic outlook regarding the likelihood of a successful investigation.
The GeneTech Syndicate made an appearance in Star Wars Galaxies, a massively multiplayer online role-playing game from 2003 that was developed by Sony Online Entertainment and published by LucasArts, before it shut down on December 15, 2011. The GeneTech Syndicate was incorporated into the game as part of the "Deifying Decisions" story arcs with the launch of "Chapter 2: The Talus Incident," on August 1, 2006.