Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News (GEN) is the world's most widely read biotech publication. It provides the R&D; community with critical information on the tools, technologies, and trends that drive the biotech industry.
Issue link: http://gen.epubxp.com/i/155541
CORPORATE PROFILE Biobusiness Mining Microbes for Promising Therapies Warp Drive Bio Has Industrialized Its Genomics Platform in Its Hunt for Natural Products Tracy Vence In today's drug development environment, one might overlook natural products, dismissing them as relics of the past. But Cambridge, MA-based Warp Drive Bio is devoting its full attention to the old school of natural products in an industrialized effort to discover and develop therapeutics using decidedly up-to-date tools and technologies, such as next-generation sequencing and single-nucleotide manipulations. "Humans have been dosing themselves with naturally occurring compounds for as long as there has been a human race," said Gregory Verdine, Ph.D., CEO. However, he added, "The way we are discovering them is completely different from the way it was done in the past." Warp Drive was launched in 2012 through a partnership with Sanof and with funding from Third Rock Ventures and Greylock Partners. Dr. Verdine, one of the frm's co-founders, in July took a leave of absence from his post as a professor of chemistry and chemical biology at Harvard in order to take the wheel at Warp Drive, which has been fully funded for its frst fve years. Though he has been involved with many startups—including Eleven Biotherapeutics, Variagenics, and Vertex Pharmaceuticals—this frm is the only one he has assumed an operational role in. Speaking with GEN, Dr. Verdine said Warp Drive devoted its frst full year to perfecting its processes, systematizing microbial genomics to an extent that had not been possible before. "In a way, the frst year of Warp was spent showing that we could get everything under one roof, and that we could really make it work on the scale which is unimaginable. Before we began this, people had sequenced single bacterial genomes and inferred the compounds in them. There were a handful of studies in the literature in which that had been done," he said. "To do it on the scale of thousands a month was something we had to convince ourselves that we could do." And in a mere seven months, he said, Warp Drive has found its fow. To date, the company has sequenced the genomes of more than 50,000 bacteria in its search for biosynthetic pathways whose outputs alter fungal physiology much in the same way they affect human physiology. "Most of these really fundamental pathways you fnd in fungi are also fundamental in humans," Dr. Verdine said. "The sequence similarity between the fungal proteins and the human proteins…is usually so high that when you fnd a molecule that exerts a potent effect on fungi, it often exerts a potent effect on human cells by exactly the same pathway." But sequencing GC-rich microbial genomes, challenging as that may be, is but a See Warp Drive Bio on page 14 VITALsigns Warp Drive Bio Location Officials at Warp 400 Technology Square Cambridge, MA 02139 Drive Bio say the company's Phone genomic search (617) 492-0913 engine and Website customized www.warpdrivebio.com search queries provide access Principal to potential Gregory Verdine CEO new drugs now hidden within Number of Employees microbes. 38 Focus Mining microbial genomes in search of natural products in an efort to develop next-generation therapeutics for various diseases. NEWS Inside Industry > Array Lays Off 50 After Amgen Diabetes Collaboration Ends Array BioPharma will cut 20% of its staff—about 50 employees—following Amgen's decision to end a collaboration aimed at developing new drugs against type 2 diabetes and refocus on hematology and oncology drugs. "After the 20% reduction, Array will have approximately 200 employees whose capabilities are tightly aligned with the company's strategy," Array said in a statement buried within its fourth-quarter and full-year results for its 2013 fscal year, which ended June 30. Also buried was Array's acknowledgement that it "received notification this week that Amgen has elected to end its glucokinase activator partnership with Array and return the program, including ARRY-403 (AMG 151), to Array." The partnership's end and the job cuts come 3-1/2 years after Array and Amgen announced their collaboration, under 12 | which Amgen was granted exclusive worldwide rights to Array's small-molecule glucokinase activator program—including the collaboration's lead product, ARRY-403/AMG 151, which is designed to reduce glucose levels by working in both the pancreas and the liver. > Luminex Cuts Jobs, Closes Australia Offce Luminex will cut its workforce by approximately 5% and close its Brisbane, Australia ofce under a restructuring plan focused on its Assay and Related Products (ARP) segment's Newborn Screening Group. The developer of molecular diagnostics did not specify how many stafers would lose their jobs in the restructuring—the number would appear to be about 35, since the most recent fgures show a total workforce of 700 employees. "While we never take decisions that afect the composition of our workforce September 1, 2013 | GENengnews.com | Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News lightly, we strongly believe that this reallocation of resources and related adjustments will make our company stronger and deliver value to our shareholders in the short term and the long term," Patrick J. Balthrop, Luminex' president and CEO, said in a statement. "These changes refect an increased focus on our growth initiatives and our ongoing strong commitment to a leadership position in molecular diagnostics and our partnership franchises." The restructuring came nine days after Luminex warned that its 2013 revenue would fall "in the lower end of" its projected range between $220 million and $230 million, while maintaining its guidance range to investors. In reporting its second-quarter results to investors, the company blamed a drop in use of molecular assays to unresolved issues with reimbursement for some tests included in the new molecular diagnostic code system established Jan. 1 by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. > Gene by Gene Acquires GE-Backed Arpeggi Gene by Gene will acquire Arpeggi, a developer of solutions for genome sequencing, data management, and computational analysis whose backers include GE. "The acquisition of Arpeggi's technology and its world-class team of data and technology experts will enable us to accelerate Gene by Gene's plan to make next -generation DNA sequencing and clinical genomics accessible and afordable to all," Max Blankfeld, a managing partner of Gene by Gene, said in a statement. Founded last year, Arpeggi's oferings include GCAT or Genome Comparison and Analytic Testing, a free community-driven platform launched in April for evaluating the performance of next-generation sequencing (NGS) data analysis methods. Arpeggi also ofers scalable sequencing tools via local network or cloud. These tools are designed to enable accurate, fast, and cost-efective analysis of genomes. n