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The so-called personalized medicine field is going to offer revolutionary advances in pharmaceutical and biotechnology product development and application to patients — and local companies will be at the forefront.
Boston, particularly with its universities and venture capital access, is in a great position to exploit the field as it grows, said Vance Vanier, the chief medical officer of Foster City, Calif.-based Navigenics Inc., a genetic testing service provider. According to recent surveys, a majority of Americans want genetic testing and other personalized medicine technologies to be generally available, he said. “Speaking as a former investor, the market demand is exceeding what we thought it would do,” said Vanier. In particular, the Boston area’s personalized medicine researchers and startups are attractive for West Coast-based investments and partnerships, he said.
A number of local companies are looking to expand on this bonanza with new offerings. One of them is Good Start Genetics Inc., a Boston-based startup that is offering to perform comprehensive DNA-based diagnostic testing services for would-be parents to determine if their genes put potential offspring at risk. The company was launched in 2008, said co-founder Paris Wallace, who estimated the market for its services at over $1 billion.
“The information we give allows parents to make informed decisions and take advantage of multiple potential treatment options, and early diagnosis,” said Wallace. The company is looking for investors and is open to different funding mechanisms, but he declined to offer details.
Additionally, this week, Waltham-based genetic biomarker test Interleukin Genetics Inc. launched a new brand of genetic testing kits dubbed “Inherent Health,” said company president Kenneth Kornman. The three tests will cover heart, bone and weight management.
Knome Inc., a Cambridge-based genomics services provider, is looking to reduce the cost of genomic analysis and make it more popular. In May it announced a service that is priced for about $1 per gene for analysis. It also is offering a new service to hold someone’s DNA for future testing if the customer decides to do that, said Jorge Conde, CEO of Knome.
Some startups are focusing on creating software and services that do such things as help researchers, including pharmaceutical firms, optimize drug development or determine the best drugs for certain patients. This includes Boston-based diagnostic service startup Immuneering Corp., which aims to use data gathered from a patient to determine if certain drugs are likely to activate that patient’s immune system and help recovery. In a similar vein, another startup is Framingham-based Bio-Tree Systems Inc., which is developing imaging software to analyze the effects of different drugs in the blood vessels of tumors to potentially improve patient treatment and to optimize drug development.
The computing costs — something around $100,000 for a single genome sequencing — and other factors have slowed the spread and sophistication of the new technologies. Also slowing down the spread of the technologies is the lack of industry best practices. Nevertheless, experts are saying its time is coming. Future applications would be comprehensive, easy to use, and affordable, officials said.
“I think it’s the future,” said Michelle Dipp, the head of GlaxoSmithKline PLC’s Centre of Excellence for External Drug Discovery in Cambridge. The unit supports new drug discovery outside of GSK, and her unit will be considering potential investments in the field. “GSK is committed to important new technology that has the potential to create differentiated medicines,” said Dipp.
However, there remain some challenges around creating best practices and regulations for the field, noted Conde. Also, who should oversee the genetic data is another question. “Should the physician act as gatekeeper of data?” asked Conde.
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