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{bio,medical} informatics

Tuesday, July 03, 2001

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GenomeWeb Human Genome Sciences Reclaims Exclusive Rights to Technology, Embarks on Drug Discovery Mission

"Human Genome Sciences said Monday it had reclaimed the exclusive rights to its data and technologies following the June 30 expiration of a 1996 agreement that gave members of the human gene therapeutic consortium equal access to HGS's technology and intellectual property for the development of small molecule and antibody drugs."

""There are many new opportunities for us, we are like kids in a candy store," said Haseltine, adding that all alliances would be directed at "helping us become a fully integrated pharmaceutical company focusing on therapeutic proteins and antibody development.""

TheStreet.Com Assessing the Value of Human Genome's Gene Database
""Our goal is to become a bio-pharmaceutical company," says Haseltine."

But skeptics saw something entirely different in today's announcement. One fund manager, an Human Genome bear but with no current position in the stock, believes drug companies are finding few tasty morsels in HGS' genetic candy store."

""The reason they cut off access to the database on Saturday and didn't announce any new agreements is because drug companies aren't interested anymore," he says, adding that if HGS' database was valuable, the company's partners would have reserved a higher number of genes."
redux [06.19.01]
Fortune Bill Haseltine
"One jab that drew chuckles: "You may have read that you're not much different from a flatworm," he told the crowd, referring to the decoders' startling claim that our set of genes isn't much larger than that of worms. At Human Genome Sciences, "we don't think so."

In fact, Haseltine says his Rockville, Md., company has found more than 90,000 human genes. In contrast, both the government-funded Human Genome Project and Celera Genomics, the Rockville company that mounted a parallel effort to decipher the genome, recently estimated that we have only about 35,000 genes. The dispute has big implications. If Haseltine is wrong, his company may have wasted millions of dollars trying to patent genes that don't exist. If he's right, the genome projects may be no better than "reading smudged text through foggy glasses," as Haseltine recently put it, when it comes to identifying genes."

[ rhetoric ]

“Bioinformatics will be at the core of biology in the 21st century. In fields ranging from structural biology to genomics to biomedical imaging, ready access to data and analytical tools are fundamentally changing the way investigators in the life sciences conduct research and approach problems. Complex, computationally intensive biological problems are now being addressed and promise to significantly advance our understanding of biology and medicine. No biological discipline will be unaffected by these technological breakthroughs.”

BIOINFORMATICS IN THE 21st CENTURY

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