Monday, February 25, 2008

Biomed Notebook

RNAi drives more than just local science labs

By Ryan McBride

Sometimes the hottest advances in biotech are quicker to make money as research tools than as treatments for human disease. And research products and services firm Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. has shown this to be true with its RNA-interference (RNAi) technology.

Many of us on the biotech beat have paid ample attention to biotechs such as Alnylam Pharmaceuticals Inc. of Cambridge that are developing gene-silencing drugs based on RNAi science, but the coverage (at least from this reporter) has been a bit light on companies such as Thermo that are generating sales from the technology products. Also, Thermo executives say its RNAi products not only are drawing paying customers but also are having an impact in the development of new drugs to treat major ills.

Earlier this month, we ran a feature article about how Alnylam, based in Cambridge, had achieved leadership status in the development of RNAi-based drugs through its completion of a Phase 2 clinical trial. It was also noted that few biotechs had advanced RNAi treatments into clinical trials -- and that none have actually commercialized one.

On the other hand, RNAi has been in commercial use as an enabler of life sciences research for a while. And the Dharmacon unit of Thermo has had double-digit revenue growth in recent years from sales of its RNAi research product, dubbed siGenome siRNA, said Mike Deines, vice president of sales and marketing at Dharmacon, which is based in Lafayette, Colo.

Thermo doesn't publicly disclose sales figures specifically for its siGenome product, Deines said, but the product's revenues are added into total sales for the parent company's analytical-technologies business, which grew from nearly $154 million in 2006 to more than $245 million in 2007.

The Dharmacon unit had been part of Hampton, N.H.-based Fisher Scientific International Inc., when Thermo and Fisher merged in 2006 in a deal valued at $10.6 billion.

The siGenome product consists of a library of what are called small-interfering RNA, or siRNA, molecules, designed to prevent thousands of human genes from producing certain proteins. Some of the proteins made by human genes are linked to mechanisms key to surviving deadly diseases, and Thermo's RNAi product aids medical researchers in their hunt for those harmful proteins.

Already a relative commercial success, the siGenome product has also helped researchers make key discoveries that could improve treatments for diseases. Harvard Medical School, for instance, used the product to identify 273 proteins essential to the spread of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. Harvard researchers said only 36 of those 273 proteins had been known previously as being important to HIV growth.

In Harvard's HIV experiments, Deines explained, the virus was placed in 21,000 wells containing RNAi molecules, each intended to block genes from producing certain proteins. The virus was deprived of certain proteins in each of the 21,000 wells, helping the Harvard researchers figure out which proteins were important to the growth of the virus.

The Harvard research, published earlier this month, could play a role in the development of new drugs for HIV, which has been difficult to treat or vaccinate because of the virus's uncanny ability to mutate. The National Institutes of Health reports that the rapid mutations of the virus help it to thwart the body's immune responses as well.

Thermo said that Harvard Medical is among 26 research institutions using its RNAi product for research into cancer, diabetes, infectious disease and other maladies of humankind. But Thermo isn't the only company hawking RNAi products for research -- it competes in the market with such companies as Millipore Corp., based in Billerica, and Invitrogen Corp., of Carlsbad, Calif.