March 12, 2007
Genstruct
Keith Elliston
President and CEO
How has your company adapted and responded to the changing economic climate in the past five years when so many others companies did not?
As the economy has gone through its many changes over the past several years, we have adopted a disciplined growth strategy. Genstruct’s corporate strategy is to be flexible and adaptive to the economic environment; when necessary we have been able to adopt a fiscally conservative strategy that affords us prudent growth while still making a real scientific impact, and when we have needed to increase growth to meet the needs of our partnerships, we have been able to achieve this in a timely manner without adding undue economic burden.
What is your vision for the future of the life sciences market over the next several years?
The future of drug discovery and development lies in understanding the molecular mechanisms for compounds under development. In the future, to be considered for development, every drug will require a detailed mechanistic analysis of the networks and pathways that it modulates. Thus, in the next several years there will be increasing demands for technologies and methodologies that can elucidate and deliver those mechanisms. The Critical Path Initiative has outlined the FDA’s vision of the future of drug discovery, and will eventually mandate that drug development organizations deliver full molecular mechanism for the regulation of whole biological networks, and not merely the initial molecular target of the drug.
What products and services does your company provide and what special capabilities do they offer the life sciences market?
Genstruct partners with pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies to identify the networks and pathways perturbed by diseases and drug action, and to define the biomarkers critical to drug development. Genstruct uses the tools of systems biology and its proprietary Causal System Modeling platform to accomplish this.
Partnerships are an effective way to track life science advances and ensure that your company delivers timely products and services. Which life sciences companies or organizations have you partnered with or invested in and why?
Genstruct has announced partnerships for drug discovery and development with Pfizer and GSK. These companies have excellent reputations for innovation and a willingness to invest in new technologies to advance their drug discovery and development programs.
Genstruct also has partnered with smaller, undisclosed biotechnology companies to advance our own discovery and development efforts, and for their compatibility with our methods and business model. It is through our Pharmaceutical and Biotechnology partnerships that Genstruct will increase the success of drug development for the industry, for the benefit of our partners and our stakeholders.
What are your most exciting products and initiatives in development, and how will they improve life science research?
Genstruct is a Development Partnership company, and thus, our “product” is the development of new drugs in collaboration with our partners. With each new partner and project we develop many new innovations that are making significant contributions to science. For example, we are the first company to be able to routinely and clearly characterize the molecular pathways and mechanisms for diseases, and drugs. We don’t simply deliver targets and propose pathways, but define entire networks of active biology induced by drugs, and define the surrogate genomic and protein biomarkers needed to facilitate their development. In the future, it will be considered essential to know the networks and pathways perturbed by development compounds before designing or initiating clinical trials. Genstruct is at the forefront of this movement.
Where do you see your company in five years?
Over the next five years, Genstruct will spearhead the effort to develop drugs whose molecular mechanisms are clearly identified, and to design hypothesis- (rather than statistically) driven clinical trials. Genstruct will not only facilitate drug development by its large pharmaceutical partners, but will co-develop drugs with small, innovative biopharmaceutical companies, providing the means for the mechanism-based development of their compounds as well.