.gen Technologies Inc.

From Sylvia Pagán Westphal at Xconomy.com, some great anecdotes from the pharmaceutical industry on expensive missteps in bringing new molecules to market – including a missed pharma/CRO data integration issue we’ve documented in LSIT’s Data Management Good Informatics Practices.

http://www.xconomy.com/national/2010/06/24/fixing-the-broken-model-look-inside-your-company/

It’s terrific to see such great results from recent oncology research,
including from our local Pfizer gang in La Jolla. I love Dr. Mano’s
anecdote about a critically ill patient who, two weeks into treatment
with a new experimental drug, was trolling the streets of Seoul
looking for good restaurants!

From The New York Times:

Scientists Cite Advances on Two Kinds of Cancer

Studies report significant progress taming two of the most intractable
types of cancer, melanoma and lung cancer.

http://nyti.ms/dCN6PH

Hot off the presses, Illumina has just lowered prices on its Individual Genome Sequencing services to $19,500 – or $9,500 for patients with serious medical conditions who could benefit.

http://investor.illumina.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=121127&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1434418

Oracle, which already markets its product Oracle Clinical to
pharmaceutical companies, announces acquisition of Waltham MA based
Phase Forward to add to its suite. Phase Forward uses a Software as a Service product to help pharmaceutical companies move from paper-based management and submission of clinical trials data to an electronic form. Friends working in clinical trials data management and competitors like Microsoft Amalga LS will watch this closely.

http://www.xconomy.com/boston/2010/04/16/oracle-scoops-up-phase-forward-for-685-million/

A thoughtful analysis of why Microsoft should acquire a partner in the Electronic Health Record space, as well as a brief analysis of the top ten contender firms.  I particularly enjoyed the retelling of the Great Plains/Navision CRM success story as background.

http://www.softwareadvice.com/articles/medical/microsoft-emr-its-not-just-a-matter-of-when-its-a-matter-of-who-1040510/

Local development-stage biotech Sorrento Therapeutics has developed a
library of over a trillion human monoclonal antibodies, and aims to
sell access to it to other drug developers to fund the building of its
own drug development process.

http://sdbj.www.clients.ellingtoncms.com/news/2010/apr/19/sorrento-therapeutics-puts-wraps-antibody-library/

Xconomy’s Luke Timmerman interviews Illumina CEO Jay Flatley on
innovation, competition and staying on top. Particularly insightful
are his views on the competitive landscape for next-gen sequencing,
bioinformatics and why there aren’t any billion-dollar bioinformatics companies (yet)
and the coming data management challenge in sequence data.

http://www.xconomy.com/san-diego/2010/04/06/illumina-ceo-jay-flatley-on-how-to-keep-an-edge-in-the-fast-paced-world-of-gene-sequencing/?single_page=true

In a brilliant piece of co-marketing, Glenn Close and sequencing giant Illumina announce the full coverage DNA sequencing of her genome. How many more people do you think there are this morning asking if they should have their full genome sequenced? And do you think our Health IT systems are ready for this?

http://investor.illumina.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=121127&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1401402

In an exciting application of whole genome sequencing technologies, Richard Gibbs and James Lupski from Baylor used Life Tech’s SOLiD system to find the mutation implicated in Charcot-Marie-Tooth Disease (CMT), a neurological disorder that currently affects 1 in 2,500 individuals in the United States. This acts as a proof of concept for whole genome sequencing as a diagnostic for human disease.

http://ir.lifetechnologies.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=61498&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1401299

Startup Nanosphere in Northbrook Illinois has developed an entire assay in a small disposable package.

Nanosphere uses a gold nanosphere probe to pack an entire assay – for a specific SNP or protein segment – into a small disposable package, and are targeting the pharmacogenetics and oncology market. Unfortunately, identifying whether the target is in the sample or not requires popping the cartridge into their reader for interpretation, but I would imagine their business case is that once the cartridge is used and the slide prepared it can then be sent away to a lab for analysis, and the slide might be more stable than biological sample.

Interestingly, the product already has FDA approval. Hmmm.

More on this product from MIT Technology Review at http://www.technologyreview.com/biomedicine/24581/.