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The morning after winning the Memphis Business Journal Small
Business Award, Divyen Patel went to work and was greeted with a
stack of FedEx boxes. Inside were tissue samples from the world's
leading research centers, like the MD Anderson Cancer Center. There
were also samples from scientists at UT and St. Jude.
It was a typical morning for a very untypical business.
Patel is CEO of Genome Explorations, Inc., which didn't even exist
two years ago. Today the company is providing genetic profiling
for scientists at more than 60 universities, from Singapore to Europe.
The company won the award in the smallest category against four
other finalists with 1-25 employees.
"I thought we might
have a chance because everyone's talking about biotech right now,
but I was very impressed with the other companies in our category,"
Patel says.
Genome Explorations grew out of a relationship between Patel and
his chief operating officer, Arno Justman, who's the money guy.
Until two years ago Patel was working at St. Jude Children's Research
Hospital, with Justman's wife in an adjacent lab.
Patel initiated and then operated the Affymetrix Core Facility at
St. Jude. Affymetrix, Inc., of Santa Clara, Calif., owns technology
that can quickly sort through 400,000 genes and identify a few hundred
which are active.
Until now, identifying even just a few active genes took years.
It was a pipe dream to pinpoint the dozens that interact to create
disease. Genome Explorations has taken off because it provides that
sort of research horsepower, particularly to scientists at small
facilities that can't afford an Affymetrix system or the people
to operate it.
"Arno always told me that if I were ever
interested in private enterprise, then I should call him,"
Patel says. "I completed my leukemia study at St. Jude and
it was the perfect time to apply this technology to other cells.
Arno found the money to make this happen; the banks not only wanted
us to mortgage our house, but to re-mortgage the children."
Patel did not forget where he came from, and today has three of
St. Jude's leading scientists on his board: William Evans, executive
vice president and deputy director; Jim Downing, chair of pathology;
and Clyde Slaughter, assistant director of the Hartwell Center for
Bioinformatics and Biotechnology. A fourth St. Jude person, molecular
biologist Clayton Naeve, will soon join the board. Naeve is chief
research information officer and director of the Hartwell Center.
"I've never looked at myself as being divorced from St.
Jude; I took this technology to a degree they weren't interested
in," Patel says. "The reason these smart people are on
my board is so if I get too bogged down on something they can help
me refocus."
The original plan was to provide gene profiling for UT scientists,
but within months of opening, word spread. Genome Explorations became
profitable in its third month and had more than $1 million in revenue
in its first year.
Success is allowing the company to branch off in multiple directions.
A new holding company has been formed to own Genome Explorations
and any sister companies. The first of those is Astrogene, a joint
venture with Semmes-Murphey neurosurgeon Bruce Frankel. They're
looking at the genetic underpinnings of brain tumors, and Patel
is talking with other scientists interested in using his technology
to do the same sort of research on other diseases.
Separately, the company is preparing to replicate its services in
Europe.
"In Europe a $500,000 investment is substantial,
so most universities don't have access to this kind of technology,"
he says. "The research funding isn't geared up the way it is
in the United States." European scientists still have money
for running genetic arrays.
Also in the works are alliances with software companies to produce
software for scientists to aid their genetic research. The company
hopes to form alliances with more physicians in order to gain access
to a wider variety of tissue samples from both healthy and diseased
patients.
Frankel's work, and anything that follows in other diseases, will
depend on building a vast genetic databank. At the genetic level
there are probably dozens of different forms of breast cancer, for
example. Likewise for other broad disease categories.
The next revolution in medicine will be tailor-made vaccines, designed
for the genetics of the disease and of the patient. Building databases
will support that.
Contact Memphis Business Journal staff writer
Scott Shepard at sshepard@bizjournals.com
Copyright 2002 American City Business Journals Inc.
All rights reserved.
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