By John Russell
December 10, 2009 | Roughly ten years ago, BioSeek bet that systems biology combined with primary human cell-based assays could provide an effective way to screen compounds for mechanism of activity and toxicity. So it has turned out, and quite soon, after its pending acquisition by leading tissue biobank and services provider Asterand closes, the combined company will be poised to take advantage of a boomlet in cell- and tissue-based services.
“They are a human tissue provider and we’re a user of human tissue and cell types so it’s a pretty compelling story,” says Ellen Berg, BioSeek co-founder and CSO. “There will be little change for customers except over time we will be able to offer even more in terms of expanding the assay platform etc.”
BioSeek’s proprietary platform, BioMAP, screens compounds against small populations of cells and compares the signature to its proprietary database of pathway signatures. According to its web site the company has developed more than 25 different BioMAP Systems for indications in vascular inflammation, cardiovascular and respiratory diseases, fibrosis and related clinical conditions. Proprietary powerful informatics is also an important part of the solution.
Asterand’s primary strength is as a tissue provider but it also offers profiling and has a robust oncology initiative which BioSeek lacks. In 2006 Asterand conducted a reverse takeover of UK-based Pharmagene, which is listed on the London Stock exchange, and the merged company now markets itself as “the leading global supplier of high quality, well characterized human tissue and human tissue-based research services to drug discovery scientists.”
The BioSeek acquisition is part of a buy-to-build strategy described in Asterand’s most recent interim financial report (Deal Details). There are several synergies for BioSeek: access to diverse tissue samples will improve and costs decline; Asterand’s oncology work can be adapted to BioMAP; plus Asterand has a global sales force and a large biopharmaceutical customer base.
Talking about the acquisition, Berg says, “I know not only the board and CEO but also all the staff felt that the value of our technology is when it is more integrated into programs. The bigger you are, it just gives you that much more leverage.
Technology platform companies sometimes attempt to transform into product companies where the upside can be greater. BioSeek is not going that route.
“Technology has always been my baby so I’ve always been focused on advancing the application of the technology. This certainly is a direction that I’m very happy with,” Berg says. “I think if you look at the economy and companies that are trying to make it as standalone, early drug discovery companies, there’s just not the money to advance programs. Getting $30 million to expand a discovery program [is difficult].”
Two years ago, Mike Venuti was brought in as CEO to help the company increase its commercial success. Since then the business model had been shifting, says Berg, ”We’ve gone from smaller projects with many partners to larger projects with few partners. We are now getting partners interested and willing to use our technology to drive lead optimization and lead selection. This would be in areas where biochemical assays aren’t predictive or they’ve gotten as far as they can get with their assays and are looking for something that will do a better job of differentiating compounds.”
BioSeek’s services include:
• Compound screening for lead discovery
• Lead optimization and structure-activity relationship (SAR) studies
• Characterization of secondary or off-target activities
• Mechanism of action studies
• Development of additional BioMAP Systems for custom applications
• Re-profiling of stalled clinical-stage compounds
• Evaluation of in-licensing drug candidates
Venuti will stay on as a consultant during the transition. Berg and Dr. Ivan Plavec, BioSeek’s Vice President of Business Development will join Asterand’s senior management team.
The timing of the deal may be right. Outsourcing is expected to be hot because of cost cutting and downsizing in pharma. So far it’s a mixed bag, says Berg. While demand is ticking up, “partners became much more focused on individual projects and they were under more pressure to deliver within certain timeframes, so they pushed us.”
On the positive side, a number of changes have helped drive the cell-based assay market. The number of sources of high quality cells has increased, Berg says, which permitted BioSeek to expand “outside of inflammation into sort of tissue remodeling and lung fibrosis and skin biology, and we’re doing preliminary work in other organ and tissue areas.”
More generally, disappointment with animal models and derived cell lines and the buzz over stem cells has fanned growing enthusiasm for using primary human cells.
“[The market for tissue and cell-based technology services] seems to be exploding to me and partly that’s being driven interest in stem cells. Of course the expertise we have with primary cells is exactly the expertise required for stem cell applications," she says.
“In many cases the reason you want stem cells to be available is to do screening and in some cases it’s no different than a primary cell except that stem cell technology may get you access to cell types that aren’t otherwise available.”
No surprise, BioSeek is quite content with its position. “We’re pretty happy because we believe not only can we do the assay but also we can help design the assay, in terms of providing the biology support. In pharma project scientists often must move from therapeutic area to therapeutic area and they are often not that expert in a particular area because two years before they were in metabolism and now they are in oncology. We find our expertise appreciated.”
While Asterand is officially based in London, most of its employees are located in Detroit where the biobank facility is. There are no plans to move San Francisco-based BioSeek (14 employees), says Berg; she expects there will be cross-fertilization between the two organizations.
“The main thing is we’ll be in a better position to expand the therapeutic coverage and support it. And at the same tine we’ve been working on the predictive aspects of our technology. On one hand there’s running assays for people and giving them data but there’s also using our data and data base to develop in silico predictive models so you’re able to compare compounds more effectively with each other and take advantage databases of clinical trial data.
“Our project with EPA helped us build the data sets with their people and start to test the models. So I think we’re looking forward to more predictive tools that we’ll be able to offer.”