emil
This is my first post to this thread. I have talked to a couple of people at Isis, but I have agreed to not divulge any details of their projects. At that time, they were looking into working on asthma, and the approach is very interesting (at least in a scientific point of view). It was very early stage, and I have a mouse model of airways inflammation. I was interested in using anti-sense to inhibit different molecules such as IL-5, eotaxin or RANTES. What impressed me was the speed that they can screen out a useful candidate. Apparently, finding the correct anti-sense oligo against a certain gene is not an exact science. They have to synthesis a range of overlaping oligos and try each one in an in vivo system. However, screening is simple since they only need to do Northern blots or RNase protection assays. After identifying the correct sequence, they have to chemically alter the backbone structure of the RNA to improve stability. This may reduce cell penetration, and again it is a balancing act. However, they told me that it only usually takes 6 weeks to find a useful oligo. Contrast that with the decades of development most traditional pharmaceutical products require. Molecular biology is certainly much faster and easier than protein chemistry.
The application of anti-sense technology is limitless. Since Isis owns most of the technologies that make anti-sense work in vivo, many pharmaceutical companies are willing to collaborate. I don't see any viable competitors in this field in the near future. I don't know of all the industry collaborators they have, but I am quite sure you can get that information from the company.
My research focus at the moment is in asthma. This is a disease that requires a good treatment; non of the current treatments are entirely satisfactory, and the market potential is enormous. I dream of the day when we can actually replace corticosteroids....
Wall Street is too shortsighted. It is difficult even for physicians to realize the significance of a biotechnology invention, never mind those ordinary Wall Street analysts. My former Mentor told me a story about Amgen. He heard about erythropoetin well before Amgen had an approved product, and asked his colleague who was a hematologist about it. She told him that she could not possibility see what use recombinant erythropoetin has, and even if it is useful, the market will be small. Of course, the rest is history and Amgen has appreciated some 150 fold since then. The best course of action is to believe in yourself. When solid results come in, there is nothing Wall Street can do except to take notice. In the case of Isis, it may take another 5 years or so, but it will be ultimately worthwhile. Anti-sense technologies will revolutionize the way we treat disease if it does work; the odds is better than even, in my opinion, that it will work.
Sorry for the even lengthier posst!
Adrian |
