ZURICH, April 4 (Reuters) - Myriad Genetics Inc (NasdaqNM:MYGN - news) said on Wednesday it had formed a $185 million joint venture with two top technology companies aimed at making profits by unlocking the complex secrets of human proteins.
The agreement is between Myriad, best known for discovering the gene linked to hereditary breast cancer; Oracle Corp (NasdaqNM:ORCL - news), the world's second-largest software company; and Hitachi Ltd (NYSE:HIT - news), Japan's largest electronics maker.
Details were released in a statement in centres where the companies are based and in Switzerland, where a major investor is located.
Oracle leads the database software market, while Myriad already has a proteomics cooperation with Hitachi Medical Corp.
The venture foresees compiling information gleaned on proteins and their interactions within human cells and bringing the data into a proprietary database, to be completed by 2004.
The information would cover all human protein interactions and biochemical pathways, alongside a comprehensive catalogue of purified proteins. It would be licensed to pharmaceutical and bitotech companies for use in developing therapies and drugs.
Myriad already has underscored its aim to be a leading proteomics firm.
Genomics is ``the starting point...but proteomics is much more exciting to Myriad,'' Myriad's Chief Executive Peter Meldrum told Reuters in an interview earlier this year.
In Wednesday's statement he said: ``This project represents a bold leap toward the future of drug development through a substantial commitment to discovering the molecular basis of disease in order to create safer, more effective therapeutics''.
Terms call for Myriad, based in Salt Lake City, Utah, to contribute technology valued at $82 million. Hitachi and Oracle, along with Swiss investor Peter Friedli who heads Friedli Corporate Finance in Zurich, will contribute a further combined $85 million in cash, alongside $18 million in products.
Friedli, 47, was one of the first to invest in Myriad, set up in 1991....
International Business Machines Corp (NYSE:IBM - news) (IBM) has signed an agreement with the proteomics unit of Canada's MDS Inc (Toronto:MDS.TO - news) to provide it with super-computing power needed to build what MDS calls a ``Biomolecular Interaction Network Database'' (BIND) to catalogue and study proteins.
MDS is also part of IBM's ``Blue Gene'' supercomputer project, using a computer 1,000 times more powerful than the ``Deep Blue'' computer which beat world chess champion Gary Kasparov in 1997.
Celera Genomics Group (NYSE:CRA - news), which virtually completed mapping the human genome last year, now has a cooperation with the U.S. Department of Energy's Sandia National Laboratories, along with IBM competitor COMPAQ Computer Corp (NYSE:CPQ - news) to mine the genome. Celera is also focusing on proteomics, and has said it will spend large sums to develop the business... |
