Monday, May 1, 2006

Flu forecaster firm born

By Dyke Hendrickson

Replikins Ltd., a new Boston company headed by a venerable biochemist who has mined both data and his own experience, is developing predictive software and a possible vaccine.

The enterprise -- founded by 78-year-old Samuel Bogoch -- is rolling out FluForecast, its software designed to analyze data to predict when certain infectious diseases will "replicate" and reappear, such as the much-publicized Avian flu.

Replikins will market it as a service to governments and life-sciences companies attempting to predict such threats, while its vaccine would counteract those threats.

Bogoch, a founder of the neurochemistry laboratory at Harvard Medical School and a former faculty member at Boston University School of Medicine, launched the company with his wife and colleague, Eleanor. Bogoch said he raised "more than $10 million" in preparation for incorporation, but he declined to identify investors.

"Everyone is concerned about epidemics, and people say I am a Johnny-come-lately," said Bogoch. "but I have been working on this stuff since I got my Ph.D. from Harvard in 1957."

The project involves animal testing at sites worldwide. The startup focused first on the influenza virus and is developing a vaccine to counter the virus.

In developing its software, Replikins used data from the Centers for Disease Control going back to 1918, the year of one of the most deadly influenza outbreaks in history.

"We discovered a pattern of the same peptides in virus outbreaks," said Bogoch. "After that, we developed the software to study the replikins quantitatively to give advance warning for the first time of virus outbreaks and dormancy."

The company has worked with both the CDC and the National Institutes of Health on developing data, but it is not supported by those agencies.

Carl Franzblau, chairman of the department of biochemistry at Boston University School of Medicine, said he worked with Bogoch in the 1980s and early 1990s.

"I don't know his new company, but I remember him as a fine scientist who did some very elegant biochemistry," said Franzblau. "He made discoveries from the time he left graduate school, and has done much good work since."