LOS ANGELES, Nov 3 (Reuters) - The expansive field of gene
research got a little more focused Monday when two small biotech
companies agreed to merge and work jointly to develop new
disease treatments based on gene discoveries.
Drug development company Arris Pharmaceutical Corp said it
would buy Sequana Therapeutics Inc (NASDAQ:SQNA), which identifies
genes associated with human diseases. The merger created one of
the first biotechnology companies to have "capabilities
extending from gene-to-drug," the companies said.
Part of the problem is that the companies like Sequana that
have the expertise to identify different genes are not the same
ones that know how to actually make drugs.
"It's really critical to integrate the two," said Mehta and
Isaly analyst Edmund Debler, who called the merger of Arris and
Sequana a "text book example of vertical integration."
"They're combining a company that has a technology to
provide information with one that moves it further along the way
to finding a drug candidate."
While the combination moves research efforts along, it does
not guarantee any successful new drugs will result.
Most drug companies have already invested in the burgeoning
field of "genomics," which is widely seen as the wave of the
future in disease prevention and treatment. But the field has
also been criticized recently for its lofty promises and failure
to follow through.
Although researchers have located many genes found to cause
different forms of cancer and other deadly diseases, they have
not yet come up with any treatments based on these findings. A
woman may be tested to see if she has one of the genes linked to
breast cancer, but if the test comes back positive, she has few
good options to prevent the cancer from appearing.
Arris has demonstrated some know-how in developing compounds
that counteract diseases, but it has not yet brought any of its
drug candidates to market.
And developing gene therapies has proven to be particularly
challenging. It requires not only a compound that works in the
lab, but a precise delivery mechanism to bring the treatment to
the targeted part of a cell's DNA.
"Our chemistry expertise picks up where Sequana's target
identification leaves off," said Arris chief financial officer
Fred Ruegsegger.
Of an estimated 100,000 human genes, experts believe about
10,000 are potential targets for some type of pharmaceutical
intervention, Ruegsegger said.
"It is very feasible that a majority of the new drug
discoveries will be genomics-based within 10 years," said
Debler.
But he added that Arris and Sequana still needed to
demonstrate their ability to effectively combine resources. One
of the biggest hurdles, he said, was simply sifting through the
volumes of new data that are coming out of genetic research.
"I think (the merger) has great potential to be a long-term
builder of value, but it's not a slam dunk by any means."
"If you can, imagine trying to read all of the 8,000 or so
newspapers and magazines that are published on the Internet.
Genomics is worse than that."
Copyright 1997, Reuters News Service |
