To all:
Here are some of the reasons I think PRLN now has at least a fighting chance to fulfill its previous promising potential.
The initial good moves on the part of current management indicate an awareness of the unique position of PRLN within the context of the developing biotechnology and dietary supplement fields. An interesting article in todays NY Times (5/2/98) surprisingly cites Monsanto as a front-runner in biotechnology. The mundane potato is used an an example which establishes the validity of the point. The Monsanto New Leaf potato has a bacterial gene which is deadly to the Colorado potato beetle. The development was based on research from the 1980's when 60 foreign genes per year could be moved into the potato. But now Monsanto has the technology to create 10,000 new combinations per year. This is how rapidly fundamental genomics research is expanding. Robert Shapiro, Monsanto CEO, says "It means we are going to have the tools to address big and historically intractable problems with life as we know it, things like how to make plants grow in dry climates and how to live well with heart disease." (Well, witness Viagra!) Monsanto estimates that its library of genetic information and the libraries of other major drug and agricultural players in biotechnology is doubling every 12-24 months, which puts this phenomenon within the range of Moore's Law which still seems to be the prevailing benchmark in the computer revolution. It may be an indication that the previously disappointing biotechnology companies are now at the same point that Intel, Microsoft, etc., were at in the early 80's.
To my mind, the key reference with respect to Monsanto, however, is to its library on the sequence of amino acids that make up the gene. Some of the leading analysts of the biotechnology field, such as Frost and Sullivan, are already speaking of the "post-genomic era" and referring to genomics and gene-hunting as old news. The relatively unexplored field of what might be called "proteomics" will, they think, become crucially important and potentially much more lucrative. This can be defined as the analysis en masse of the protein complement in both physiological and pathological situations. Once the structure and interactions of every protein in vivo are characterized (in physiological and pathological situations) therapeutic strategies can be easily designed and that is the ultimate goal of pharmaceutical companies. The key to the proteomics field is the construction of databases characterizing the structures and interactions of proteins.
Proteomics is the future because there are a finite number of genes in the body only a fraction of which will be therapeutically useful. Proteins, however, offer a potentially infinite number of conformations and interactions in their tertiary and quaternary structures. The major clinical targets will be cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes, and HIV/AIDS. In the next five years, Frost and Sullivan and others, feel the major efforts and results will come from analysis of protein-protein interaction, signal transduction, ligand-receptor binding, protein processing and modification, and mechanisms of toxicity of drugs.
Also crucial will be developments in high through-put screening for genes and proteins of interest, the results of which initially seem likely to cut drug development time from an average of 8 to 5 years with a commensurate saving in costs.
Reading the PRLN annual report pleasingly yields several areas of correspondence to what some leading thinkers see as the core areas for exploding developments in the biotechnology future. Despite the relative newness of this area, there is, of course, impressive competition. Incyte Pharmaceuticals has their LifeSeq series genomic databases which provides a first step for commercialization of large-scale, high-throughput analysis of protein expression. They have started a collaboration with Oxford Glycosciences to construct similar databases for proteins. Aurora Biosciences has formed alliances with many companies who will use their ultra-high-throughput screening technology. Structural Bioinformatics and, another surprise, Silicon Graphics, which is much more than a computer company, seem to be in the lead in ramping up the overall technology for developing biologically relevant databases and the techniques for the manipulation of biologically relevant information and its analysis in appropriate contexts.
I have no idea, for instance, how PRLN's and Aurora's screening technologies match up against each other or where PRLN's signal transduction work, protein analysis, and toxicity work stack up with that of competitors, but PRLN certainly seems to be in the right ball park, and their libraries of Chinese and Indian Herbs, no doubt, contain, at least, some of the most important and safest active biologicals in human history. Further, they have a unique niche in the dietary supplement field and their new venture into offering quality and batch control technology in the dietary supplement area seems to be right on mark. The dietary supplement area is coming under increasing pressure and the issues of quality and batch control methods will most likely continue to grow in importance. This could provide a reasonable market for PRLN in addition to one which could also provide innumeralble alliances which could lend themselves to broadened efforts in unforseen ways as PRLN develops its expertise and stretches its wings. Getting back to Monsanto, Ganesh Kishore, co-president of Monsanto's nutrition operations and the person in charge of integrating biotechnology research across all Monsanto's businesses remarked "We will need to clarify the difference between drugs and nutrients, decide whether these products have to prove safety and efficacy, and figure out what kind of patent protection they will get." PRLN has already learned some of this the hard way and, still, the PRLN technology is in areas which only now may finally be beginning to bring forth the promise of biotechcnology and, to repeat, I like where the new management is moving with the technology since it indicates an awareness of the unique PRLN niche and potential therein which can provide a myriad of interesting collaborations and resources for PRLN's development into the future.
Larry Lundwall |
