Sure, this is my take based on my examination of Aurora a year or so ago.
One of the promises of genomics is to identify new targets for breakthrough therapeutics. Most people would like those new therapeutics to look and taste just like the old ones, i.e. pills one can chew or take with a glass or water. To get there one needs to identify so-called small molecules that interact with the new targets discovered or highlighted by the INCY, HGSI, etc of the world. That's a lot of targets. Thus, one needs so-called screening technology that works in high- or ultrahigh-throughput mode. This is what Aurora does.
To summarize in the path from gene to drug, a key bottleneck (not the only one by any stretch, see some recent excellent posts by Casaubon in the MLNM thread) is screening. Aurora and companies in the same "space" contribute here.
Now I read your post more carefully and see you said "pharmacogenomics." In the sense that ph-genomics, for short, may be good for identifying more specific targets for given disease conditions, the above still applies. In the sense in which ph-genomics can be used to refine the effects of existing drugs, then Aurora's small molecule screening technologies are less relevant. However, the same basic technologies may be used to do ph-genomics, I suppose, in some sense. The latter I am less familiar with. As I said, this is from my one-year old (brief) look at ABSC.
Hope this makes some sense,
PB |
