Word: genentech
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...shown that it can perform miracles of science, creating marvelous synthetic molecules with the potential to attack cancer or stop heart attacks. Now the genetic engineering companies are out to prove that they can work the same magic in the marketplace, turning those wonder drugs into profitmakers. Last week Genentech, an industry leader based in south San Francisco, began selling its first drug product for humans: Protropin, a growth hormone used to treat dwarfism in children. Genentech had previously developed Humulin, a synthetic insulin, but licensed it to an established pharmaceutical company, Eli Lilly, which put the drug...
...based on the protein-creation process called Protein Design Automation (PDA) that they had refined on the supercomputer. If all goes as planned, in about a year Xencor will start human trials of a protein that combats multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis and other diseases. Xencor has signed contracts with Genentech, Eli Lilly and other companies to develop additional drugs...
Jennie Mather left biotech company Genentech also out of frustration when, she says, her bosses wouldn't accept her approach to fighting cancer. She argued that what really counts in a target protein--that is, a protein that causes a disease and that a drug would aim to disable--is the protein's surface. Because a body's natural antibodies do their work entirely on the cell's exterior, she reasoned, drugs should work the same way. Such thinking was heresy to Genentech, whose scientists, she says, generally analyze a target's entire genetic structure. "They were just interested...
...Genentech says it pioneered the use of antibodies that target the surface protein of cancer, and its popular drugs work on that principle. Nevertheless, Mather saw a way to carve several years out of drug development and left to found Raven Biotechnologies, a drug-discovery company based in South San Francisco. She created a process to keep cells alive outside the body, so she could test her theory in the lab. Her efforts paid off. In December the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved one of her drugs for human testing. The drug, called RAV 12, is a protein that...
...that a drug would aim to disable - is the protein's surface. Since a body's natural antibodies never enter a diseased cell but do their work entirely on the cell's exterior, she reasoned, drugs should work the same way. Such thinking was heresy to her former employer Genentech, which analyzes a target's entire genetic structure. "They were just interested in genomics,'' she says. "There are 500 to 1,000 genes in a disease - the problem is, it takes a long time to understand what 1,000 genes do.'' Genomic drug development can typically take four to five...