Research Areas

SuperGen Inc. has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Montigen Pharmaceuticals Inc., a privately held oncology-focused drug discovery and development company based in Salt Lake City.

I’m a big fan of chaos theory. I think it can be traced to when I was fairly young and thought about the specific consequences, as it related to me, of my parents meeting. The epiphany for the primary school boy I was back then was the realization that had my parents not met, I simply would not have existed. As I further deconstructed the what-ifs and the number of things, had anything changed, that would have made me a non-entity, I was stunned by the very real notion that my existence was mostly the result of happenstance. So it is this understanding of the interdependence of actions and reactions that make me a fan of chaos theory,

It is often said that strength comes from within, that all you need to get along and be successful is a little faith in yourself. In times of crisis, this faith can require something of a gut check, where you look to see if you’re being true to yourself and your supporters. As it is with individuals, so it is with companies. The last year or so has seen a number of companies facing some really big decisions, if not outright crises, that reflect to the outside world how much faith these companies have in their abilities. And each one of these companies has approached the challenge in its own way, reflecting its unique corporate culture and its view of future markets.

The importance of data integration has been recognized by the life sciences industry for many years. Effective integration of data promises the ability for organizations to make better decisions about resource allocation during the drug discovery and development process, and for more informed decisions to be made in respect to the market opportunity for compounds. However, effective data integration has largely eluded the life sciences. The life sciences has a rich history of making data publicly available, as scientists have long recognized the benefits of sharing data for the greater good of science. However, there are now more than a thousand different biological data repositories available. This is far too many for biologists to remember, never mind navigate through all of the different interfaces to get to the data of interest.

Sage-N Research Inc., the maker of the Sorcerer analysis appliance and the SEQUEST Sorcerer system marketed by Thermo Electron Corp., plans to establish a research and development center in the New Science Park in Shanghai, China. “The field has been prolific in developing new proteomics data analysis algorithms, but the challenge is to deliver them promptly to the researchers who need them, in a form that is easy to use, even for large data sets,” says David Chiang, CEO and chairman of Sage-N. “The new Sage-N Shanghai Center will extend the company’s previous successes in doing this.”

Adding another U.S. feather to its cap, De Novo Pharmaceuticals announced a collaborative agreement with Cambridge, Mass.-based biotech Genzyme that will see the U.K. company apply its proprietary molecular modeling system, SkelGen, to identify potential lead compounds against a Genzyme target. Financial details of the deal were not disclosed.

The patients may not be real, but the results are—and so is the U.S. patent No. 6,983,237 recently issued to Entelos Inc. and titled “Method and Apparatus for Conducting Linked Simulation Operations Utilizing a Computer-Based System Model.” Making that mouthful a bit simpler, Entelos has successfully patented its invention of a key technology to effectively develop and use virtual patients—in silico representations of actual patient subpopulations—to rapidly assess the safety and efficacy of drugs in humans.

In early January PerkinElmer announced it signed a long-term licensing agreement with Austin, Texas-based Luminex Corp. for its multiplex bioassay technology called xMAP. PerkinElmer intends to use xMAP for products ranging from biomarker panels for pharmaceutical development and ADME/Tox to in vitro diagnostics in maternal, neonatal and prenatal health. PerkinElmer also plans to standardize its multiplex assay development on the Luminex xMAP platform.