Protein Science Is the New Focus of Biotechnology Industry
Knight Ridder/Tribune
April 18, 2001
Apr. 18--Will the real proteomics companies please stand up?
With the completion of the mapping of the human genome, the biotechnology industry is focusing on its next giant leap. And for many, that advance will be proteomics -- the science of proteins and how they interact and affect the body.
Suddenly, it seems, every company wants to trumpet its activity in the ill-defined but rapidly growing field.
Says Linda Miller, portfolio manager for John Hancock's biotechnology and life sciences mutual funds, "2000 was the year of the genome. People are searching for the next area, real or imagined, to excite Wall Street, and proteomics is what people seem to have settled on. Companies are either trying to recast their businesses to take advantage of that, while some are in a position where the markets are coming to them."
Venture capitalists are also being inundated with business plans which now emphasize a company's expertise in proteomics or protein interactions. "We're seeing lots of people looking for funding around the proteomics area," says Terry McGuire, a partner with Polaris Venture Partners of Waltham.
Adds Dr. Enrico Petrillo, a principal with CB Health Ventures LLC, a Boston private equity fund that specializes in health care and biotechnology, "There are some companies that use the name to get interest. To be fair, they have pieces of proteomics, but not the final solution. They're not trying to be devious, they're just trying to generate interest."
The rush to reposition has some companies rankled. Before proteomics became a buzzword, scientists were hard at work isolating proteins, the large, complex molecules that govern much of the body's activity at the cellular level. These firms have little patience for what they see as party crashers.
"Our view in 1994 was the pure genomics approach was limited," says Dr. Raj Parekh, chief scientific officer of Britain-based Oxford GlycoScience PLC. "Genomics would be unable to speed drug discovery and development until it was combined with a protein platform."
Oxford GlycoScience has struck partnerships with many large pharmaceutical companies, including Pfizer, Merck, Bayer and Glaxo SmithKline. The company's key advantage is an automated way of analyzing proteins isolated from tissue samples and comparing the images of proteins in tissue samples. Because there may be as many as 1 million proteins in the body, the research must be speeded up.
Parekh says his firm's paying collaborations with big pharmaceutical companies are tangible proof of the value of its approach. "It's astonishing to me how many companies are claiming to be proteomics plays but have virtually no revenues from their proteomics activities," he says. "That's the credibility gap."
To be sure, not all the companies touting their proteomics strategies are late to the game. Myriad Genetics Inc. of Salt Lake City used to describe itself as "a genomics company focused on the discovery and commercialization of genes." Now, the company bills itself as the developer of "novel therapeutic products derived from its proprietary genomic and proteomic technologies."
But Myriad has been active in protein research and discovery since 1998. "I think we were doing it before it was called proteomics," says spokesman William Hockett. Two weeks ago, the company announced an ambitious $185 million research project to map the entire human proteome within three years, working with Hitachi Ltd. and Oracle Corp.
What's all the fuss about?
For the past few years, the biotechnology industry, and much of the life sciences world, was consumed by competing government and private efforts to map the human genome. Learning the sequence of each human gene, it was thought, would yield the "code of life," the detailed series of genetic instructions that determine what a human being looks like and how the body functions. The detailed map of the human genes -- there turned out to be about 40,000 of them, far fewer than anticipated -- was expected to be a boon in disease diagnosis and cure.
The federally funded Human Genome Project and Celera Genomics, a unit of Applera Corp. of Norwalk, Conn., announced the results in February, to great acclaim.
But the discovery was also an anticlimax. The actual processes taking place within cells are controlled by proteins, intricate molecules made up of amino acids. And while the genes provide instructions for the manufacture of proteins, understanding how the proteins work and interact would require another massive research project. Thus, the current effort to map the "proteome," or full complement of proteins in the human body, and the scramble to stake a claim in the emerging field.
Just one of the possible payoffs of proteomic research: early detection of a high-mortality disease like ovarian cancer. Ovarian cancer usually generates few symptoms in patients until it is considerably advanced, sometimes even spreading to other organs. By that time, traditional surgical, chemotherapy and radiation techniques can't do much to extend a patient's life.
But proteomics researchers could one day discover a unique protein produced only by diseased ovaries. Testing for the presence of such "biomarkers" in the blood could yield a way to detect the cancer early while it is still treatable.
That's exactly what Millennium Predictive Medicine Inc. of Cambridge is working on. Comparing samples of cancerous ovaries with healthy specimens, the company, a unit of Millennium Pharmaceuticals, has identified more than 30 possible proteins that might one day prove useful in screening for the disease. Brad C. Guild, Millennium's director of protein biochemistry, says the company also plans to look for indicators of prostate and breast cancer.
One of its advantages is a way of sorting proteins by pumping them, in solution, through a column. But Guild says that Millennium's technology "platform" is more than a specific technique. He points to the company's employees and special analytic techniques.
"Millennium has been doing proteomics all along," says Guild, "though we're doing a lot more now."
One likely target for allegations of proteomics-pretender status is the genomics king, Celera. The company says it has a 33,000-square-foot proteomics research lab staffed with 75 scientists in Rockville, Md., just a floor beneath its genomics lab.
"We're building the largest proteomics facility by far," boasts J. Craig Venter, Celera's outspoken president. He says the new lab is "the size of a football field" and scoffs at critics. "By definition, Celera is a Johnny-come-lately to everything, because we've only existed for two and a third years." After Celera's success in mapping the genome, he says, "We're a natural target because people measure themselves against us."
Meanwhile, there may be a proteomics backlash afoot. CuraGen Corp. of New Haven is using genomics information to explore proteins and their interactions, in what the company hopes will lead to new drug candidates. Last year, the company caused a splash when it announced it had completed all the protein interactions for a type of yeast.
"Gene discovery is only the first step. Understanding how genes function is the key to understanding their role in disease," chairman and chief executive Jonathan M. Rothberg said at the time. It sounds like the mantra of proteomics research.
But don't try to call CuraGen a proteomics company.
"We're not a proteomics company," says spokesman Brad Vincent. "We're a genomics-based drug discovery and development company." |
