ReviewFunctional genomics: from genes to new therapies
Section snippets
Strategic considerations in building a competitive functional genomics platform
The race to discover, develop and market new therapeutics is a fiercely competitive one, requiring significant investment in human creativity, money and time. Currently, marketed drugs interact with ∼400 genes or gene products and estimated numbers of important genes for disease predisposition, onset and progression range from 3000–10,000 out of the total of ∼100,000 genes in the human genome. Hence, many opportunities remain to identify novel genes and proteins as proprietary targets for
Scientific and technology challenges in functional genomics
Presently, a large and rapidly growing amount of gene-sequence information is available from the different genome projects in the public domain, biotechnology sector and from pharmaceutical gene-discovery efforts. The challenge in establishing a competitive functional genomics programme is the ability to handle the enormous amount of information resulting from the analysis of differential gene-expression studies. For example, differential gene expression in normal versus diseased tissues,
The human factor and functional genomics
Creating and maintaining a leading scientific team in this fast-moving environment will remain a key factor for managers of functional genomics programmes. Attracting the best scientists and informatics personnel is a priority process and Novartis is pursuing a proactive approach to staffing its groups. Visits by Novartis research managers and scientists to premier academic institutions and presentation of the company’s mission and goals has been one of the best mechanisms to attract
Outlook and conclusion
Functional genomics approaches and technologies will have an impact on other areas of pharmaceutical R&D beyond discovery research. Pharmacogenomics activities to profile the efficacy and side effects of new and existing therapies in subsets of patients within a given disease category also hold the promise of addressing ‘personalized’ medical needs. In the molecular diagnostics field, the availability of a meaningful number of precisely located single-nucleotide polymorphic (SNP) sites spanning
Acknowledgements
The authors thank Thomas Pietzonka for his help in critically reviewing this manuscript and Debra George for her dedicated assistance with literature searching.
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