September, 2006
Genetics Squared Awarded $1.6 million to Create
Cancer Therapeutic Diagnostics
ANN ARBOR, MICH. - September 25, 2006 -- Ann Arbor-based Genetics Squared has won a $1.6 million award from the 21st Century Job Fund to enhance the ability to personalize medicine. Genetics Squared, an emerging biotechnology company, will collaborate with Asterand plc of Detroit to create therapeutic diagnostics to help guide treatment decisions for cancer patients and their doctors. Genetics Squared will also offer its services to biotech and pharmaceutical companies who need companion diagnostics for oncology compounds that are under development.
"Our patented technique will help transform the pharmaceutical industry, allowing Genetics Squared to grow into a successful biotechnology company and to generate more high-tech jobs for the state," said Bill Worzel, Genetics Squared co-founder and chief technology officer. "Michigan will lead the future in the development of therapeutically targeted diagnostics."
Genetics Squared has developed a computational technique for combining molecular and clinical data to create rules for classifying patients into distinct, therapeutically responsive subpopulations. The data is collected from clinical records and newly generated molecular data from existing biopsy material, and includes patient demographics, history, tumor histology and staging, clinical chemistry, and genomic or proteomic data.
Its partner, Asterand, the leading supplier of high-quality human tissue and tissue-based services, will provide the initial data for developing a cancer diagnostic from molecular data generated from its archived tissue bank, and the clinical records associated with the tissue. Genetics Squared will apply its proprietary genetic programming system to provide a test for predicting drug sensitivity and tolerance. This will lead to reduced costs and improved treatment for cancer patients by reducing adverse events and identifying those patients who are likely to respond to a particular course of treatment.
This approach will also lead to more successful clinical studies at reduced costs by identifying patients likely to respond to investigational compounds, reducing the size and number of clinical trials necessary to gain FDA approval for compounds. Over time Genetics Squared expects to move from
oncology treatments to other therapeutic areas such as inflammation, diabetes and autoimmune diseases.
About Genetics Squared
Founded in 2002, Genetics Squared is an emerging biotechnology company focused on delivering the promise of personalized medicine. Using its patented evolutionary drug developmentTM technology and methods, Genetics Squared is able to "rescue" promising, but struggling compounds from clinical and market failure. The company’s novel analytical approach discovers profiles of therapeutic responders and non-responders or those most likely to experience serious adverse events based on medical history, patient demographics, genetic and protein biomarkers. This allows the company and its service clients to target these promising therapies at the patients most likely to benefit. For more information, please visit www.genetics2.com.
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