Category Archives: Transhuman News

A $1 billion deal for tests that can steer patients to the right drug.

The pharmaceutical giant Roche plans to spend $1 billion to acquire majority control of Foundation Medicine, a five-year old company that developed an innovative DNA test to match patients to specific cancer drugs.

We profiled Foundation in back in 2012 (see Foundation Medicine: Personalizing Cancer Drugs), highlighting how the spinout of the MIT-Harvard Broad Institute was one of the first to introduce tests to sequence the DNA of a tumor biopsy to pinpoint the exact mutations driving a persons tumor, and possibly steer treatment. At the time, we described Foundations pricey $5,800 cancer test, called FoundationOne, this way:

Foundations business model hinges on the convergence of three recent developments: a steep drop in the cost of decoding DNA, much new data about the genetics of cancer, and a growing effort by pharmaceutical companies to develop drugs that combat the specific DNA defects that prompt cells to become cancerous.

Foundation tried something new and important. But it turns out that its hard to make money in diagnostics, and the technology of DNA testing is developing and changing very quickly, too. All that helps explain why the company agreed to sell a little over half its shares to Roche, which sells more cancer drugs than anyone. As the New York Times says today:

Roche, which is the worlds largest seller of cancer drugs, said it would use some insights from that testing to develop drugs and better tailor them for specific groups of patients. In addition, Roche, which also has a huge diagnostics business, will sell Foundations tests outside the United States.

I think it just brings personalized health care in oncology to a new level, Daniel ODay, who runs Roches pharmaceutical business, said in an interview.

The Foundation deal appears to be the largest in a series of takeovers by Roche of innovative diagnostics firms. A few years back, Roche tried and failed to acquire Illumina, the sequencing machine company whose technology underlies the explosion in DNA research. But Roche is finding no shortage of companies that are willing to sell. During the last twelve months, it bought Ariosa, a prenatal testing company, as well as Genia Technologies, which Roche paid $350 million for, and Bina Technologies, which develops bioinformatics software.

Foundations test is used to analyze a tumor for several hundred cancer-linked genes. As we reported in 2013, an early and famous customer for this technology was Apple founder Steve Jobs (see Steve Jobs Left a Legacy on Personalized Medicine):

It turns out that Jobs was one of the first peopleand certainly the best-knownto try this kind of all-in genetic strategy to beat cancer. As recounted in Walter Isaacsons biography of the Apple CEO, Jobs spent $100,000 to learn the DNA sequence of his genome and that of the tumors killing him. Jobs was jumping between treatments and hoped DNA would provide clues about where to turn next.

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Roche Takes Control of Innovative DNA Test Maker Foundation Medicine

A type of DNA for the first time has been observed moving from one cell to another in animals.

Genetic material called mightocondria convert energy from food into a form that can be used by cells. In the experiment, a tumor cell without mitrochondrial DNA formed tumors after pulling in DNA from normal cells.

Our findings overturn the dogma that genes of higher organisms are usually constrained within cells except during reproduction," Mike Berridge, a professor from the Malaghan Institute of Medical Research in New Zealand, said in a statement. "It may be that mitochondrial gene transfer between different cells is actually quite a common biological occurrence.

Berridge along with Jiri Neuzil from Griffith University in Queensland, Australia, led a team that examined breast cancer tumors in mice. Mitochondrial DNA was removed from cells, which then pulled replacement DNA from surrounding, normal mouse tissue.

The effect has been observed in the lab before, the researchers said, but not in an animal tumor.

The researchers initially thought the cells had adapted to grow without the mitochondrial DNA that had been removed. But after testing, the scientists discovered the cells did have mitochondrial DNA pulled from non-tumor cells.

The researches say the findings may help in understanding more about 200 diseases besides cancer that involve defective mitochondrial DNA. "It could also usher in a new field where synthetic mitochondrial DNA is custom-designed to replace defective genes," the researchers wrote.

If mitochondrial DNA sounds familiar, that may be because it's used in studying human ancestry. The genetic material is passed down only by one's mother, and has been instrumental in tracing a common human ancestor back to Africa 60-70,000 years ago.

The results were published in the journal Cell Metabolism.

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Animal DNA on the Go Seen for First Time

Jan. 12 (Bloomberg) -- 23andMe Director of Business Development Emily Drabant Conley discusses her companys collaboration with Pfizer to help find new targets to treat disease and to design clinical trials. She speaks on "Bloomberg West." (Source: Bloomberg)

23andMe Inc., the genetic-testing startup backed by Google Inc. (GOOG), is sharing DNA data on about 650,000 individuals with Pfizer Inc. (PFE), to help find new targets to treat disease and to design clinical trials.

The collaboration with Pfizer is the broadest announced so far in 23andMes ambitious plan to become a repository for humanitys genetic makeup, and to turn data gathered from $99 saliva tests sold to consumers into multimillion-dollar deals with drugmakers.

The agreement unveiled today gives the U.S.s largest drugmaker access to anonymous, aggregated information from consumers who bought 23andMes test over the past seven years to learn about their own genetic histories. It includes only people who agreed to let their data be used in research. Pfizer and 23andMe declined to give the deals value.

Related: 23andme Aims to End FDA Standoff This Year After Public Shaming

The Silicon Valley startup, named for the 23 pairs of chromosomes in human cells, is betting its growing troves of genetic data will prove essential to drug companies, medical researchers and even health and wellness companies.

Even as it seeks to expand its consumer tests around the world, the company is repairing relations with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. An agency ruling in late 2013 left 23andMe unable to sell health analyses from the saliva tests.

Anne Wojcicki, co-founder and chief executive officer of 23andMe Inc., speaks during a Bloomberg Television interview in San Francisco, California, on Oct. 9, 2014. Close

Anne Wojcicki, co-founder and chief executive officer of 23andMe Inc., speaks during a... Read More

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23andMe Gives Pfizer DNA Data as Startup Seeks Growth

Aerohives architecture and cloud management platform will open up business opportunities for MSPs

Distributor, DNA Connect has added US-based Wi-Fi and cloud-managed mobile networking vendor, Aerohive Networks, to its portfolio.

Aerohive's mobility platform takes advantage of the cloud and a distributed architecture to provide intelligent, simplified and cost-effective networks.

DNA Connect executive director, Munsoor Khan, said Aerohives architecture and cloud management platform opens up a new line of business for managed service providers (MSP).

Were already seeing traction with MSPs offering customers a fixed monthly price per access point with the MSP managing everything in the cloud, Khan said.

The distributor is also investing in certifying its engineers to help conduct in-country certification training for the channel and users.

As a value-added distributor were looking for ways to help grow the Aerohive channel, Khan said. Were encouraging channel partners of all types - regardless of which wireless vendors they may be working with, to take a look at the Aerohive solution and to keep up with the market as it continues to move to cloud-based services.

Aerohive Networks country manager, Peter Davison, said its controller-less Wi-Fi architecture was growing in the market.

The contract was only signed just prior to the Christmas break, and its already yielding. Theyll springboard us to doubling our revenue within the next 18 months, Davison said.

The addition of Aerohive complements DNA's existing vendor line up such as Splunk, Huawei, Imperva and Ixia.

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DNA Connect gets into Aerohive

On Monday, 23andMe announced it is sharing (anonymously) the DNA data it has collected on 650,000 individuals with pharmaceutical giant Pfizer. Sharing resources, the companies say, will help them figure out new ways to treat disease and to design clinical trials.

The terms of the deal were not disclosed publicly, but any good news is a step forward for the beleaguered startup. Since it launched in 2007, the Silicon Valley startup has built its business on analyzing DNA extracted from customers saliva to let them learn more about their ancestry, inherited traits, and risk factors for medical conditions. About 800,000 customers have signed up for 23andMes services over seven years, with two-thirds of them giving consent to let their personal test data be used in research.

Researchers hope to use 23andMes trove of genetic data to decipher connections between DNA and disease.

During those years, the company endured its share of controversy, culminating in a late-2013 clash with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which claimed 23andMe was in effect marketing a medical device without proper approvals. The FDA also contended the startup was slow in responding to agency inquiries, further souring their relationship.

The company dealt with the blow in part by selling its tests outside the U.S. And 23andMe CEO Anne Wojcicki recently told Bloomberg that the startup has been trying to repair its ties with the FDA. In May, the company began focusing its efforts on a new test limited to detecting a single genetic disorder, called Bloom syndrome, she said. The hope, according to Wojcicki, is that proceedings will move faster once this test is approved by the agency.

In the meantime, 23andMe appears to have figured out how to capitalize on the trove of personal test data it has already acquired. The anonymized collection of gene scans represents a huge sample of genetic profiles from which researchers hope to decipher connections between DNA and disease. The data appears to be valuable enough that Pfizer isnt the only big pharma company looking to dig further. Last week, according to Forbes, 23andMe inked a deal with Genentech worth $10 million up front, and up to $50 million if further milestones are reached.

With two big names already on their roster of clients, its likely that other major pharmaceutical companies will follow suit in hopes of leveling the competitive playing field. And in fact 23andMe has said it would announce a total of 10 similar deals with drugmakers and biotechnology companies this year. Its also likely, though, that collaborating with so many big pharmaceutical companies will bring renewed scrutiny from privacy advocates who have criticized the collection of so much highly personal data into one place.

But controversy is nothing new to 23andMe, and as its tests sit on the shelf, its understandable the company would look to capitalize on one of its most valuable assets. Leveraging its data has always been part of 23andMes business plan. If pharmaceutical companies are able to sift that data and uncover new treatments, that data could come to benefit us all.

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23andMe Teams With Big Pharma to Find Treatments Hidden in Our DNA