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| PamGene broadens Scientific Advisory Board: Scientific focus leads to commercial applications | | | PamGene International B.V., a biotechnology company specialised in microarray technology and applications, recently appointed four new members to its scientific advisory board. The new board now consists of eight internationally recognised scientists. They are active in various areas that are relevant to PamGene’s scientific and business development like oncology, infectious diseases, bioinformatics, genetics, pharmaceutical research and development, immunology and proteomics. The scientific advisory board helps PamGene to extend its scientific and commercial network considerably and to signal opportunities for its versatile technology and products.
The new members of the scientific advisory board are Bertrand Jordan, who is experienced in the fields of large-scale transcript analyis and genomics research, Daniel Chan, Professor of Pathology, Oncology, Urology and Radiology at the John Hopkins University Medical School, Herb Heyneker, who has more than 20 years of R&D experience in molecular genetics with several biotechnology companies and Peter Lockey, Director of Biochemistry and High-Throughput Screening for Argenta Discovery who has a lot of experience in the pharmaceutical industry. The existing members are Olli Kallioniemi (VTT-Biotechnology and University of Turku in Finland), Jutta Heim (Novartis), Julie Fox (University of Calgary) and Torben Orntoft (Aarhus University Hospital, University of Aarhus) (see annex for more details on all scientific advisory board members).
The extension of the scientific advisory board comes at a moment when PamGene is entering into a manufacturing and commercialisation phase. The market introduction of the PamStation™96 is planned in the first quarter of 2004. This system will be a key product in the launch of transcript-profiling pathway chips for secondary screening and multiplex kinase selectivity profiling assays.
With the PamStation™96, PamGene will be able to help pharmaceutical companies to considerably increase the speed and the effectiveness of their drug development process. The product provides a complete solution: testing equipment, substrates, data collection, data-analysis and data-bases. Olympus, one of the strategic partners of PamGene, is launching another product in Europe. This product is developed for fast and easy-to-use microarray based research for nucleic acid and proteomics based approaches.
Scientific advisors provide immediate support:
The aim of the scientific advisory board is to provide scientific direction for PamGene with respect to new applications of the versatile 5D-Pulse™ microarray format. At the recent annual PamGene scientific symposium, the board members presented opportunities and actions for the near future and discussed these with the management and the scientists of PamGene. This resulted in several promising initiatives.
Alan Chan, Chairman of the scientific advisory board and Vice President of Scientific Applications at PamGene says about the scientific advisory board, "I am delighted to have this particular group of scientists as advisors for PamGene. The different facets of biological knowledge offered by each member during our recent first scientific board meeting, not only infused us with new ideas, but also confirmed that PamGene is correctly on track to where it wants to position itself in the microarray market for 2004 ".
About PamGene
PamGene is an international biotechnology company that was established in December 1999. PamGene developes, manufactures and sells microarray technology solutions and products based on the 5D-Pulse™ Technology. These versatile technology and products provide value to developing new drugs and will be used for diagnostic testing in hospitals. PamGene has 45 employees. In November 2003 the company moved to its new premisis in Den Bosch to extend their manufacturing and testing facilities needed to fulfill the increasing demand for their biochips and products.
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Profiles of the scientific advisory board members
Olli Kallioniemi is one of the most highly cited scientists in the world working in areas such as tissue and siRNA tumour arrays for molecular profiling, clinical and functional target validation using tissue and cell microarrays and transcript and copy number profiling in breast cancer. He is also one of the accredited inventors of comparative genomic hybridisation. Though based at VTT-Biotechnology and University of Turku in Finland, Olli is also associated with the Translational Genomics Research Institute, a spin-off from his previous work at the NIH in Bethesda.
Jutta Heim gained much of her experience from within industry but also comes from a strong research background. She had her postdoctoral training and sabbaticals in the US at Rockefeller University, MIT and Harvard/Dana Farber Cancer Institute. Jutta's current role within Novartis is Senior Scientific Expert of Molecular and Cell Biology and Head of The Lead Discovery Center in Basel, Switzerland. Her other responsibilities include membership of The Research Management Board of Novartis Pharma, Head of The Molecular and Cell Biology Council in Novartis and Head of The Vertex Research Committee.
Julie Fox is currently Head of Molecular Diagnostics at the University of Calgary in the Provincial Laboratory for Public Health. She was previously a senior lecturer in medical virology at the University of Wales in the UK. Her postgraduate and postdoctoral training was at the Department of Virology with Professor Richard Tedder where she specialised in the area of herpes viruses.
Bertrand Jordan is now retired but has a track record that spans the world of particle physics, having worked at CERN in Geneva, to being CNRS Research Director (Maître de recherches) and then director at CIML, where he headed up the program on large-scale transcript analysis. He keeps himself busy with a number of activities including the co-ordination of the Marseille-Genopole project, a consortium that aims to develop research in the area of genomics. Bertrand is also active with Ipsogen (spun-out of the CIML in 1999) where he still presides over their scientific advisory board.
Daniel Chan is Professor of Pathology, Oncology, Urology and Radiology at the John Hopkins University Medical School and oversees the activities of 270 scientists in processing clinical chemistry and diagnostic samples. He is also in charge of two research departments, being Director of the Clinical Chemistry Division and Director of the Biomarker Discovery Centre. As well as being on the board of editors for many journals, Daniel also serves as an advisor to Ciphergen Biosystems, Roche Diagnostics and AmCare.
Peter Lockey is Director of Biochemistry and High-Throughput Screening for Argenta Discovery, a drug discovery company that provides hits to leads, lead optimisation and related services to the pharmaceutical industry. Peter was formerly head of the high throughput screening group at Aventis and has more than 14 years' experience in the pharmaceutical industry.
Herb Heyneker has more than 20 years of R&D experience in molecular genetics. He was the first scientist hired at the founding of Genentech in 1976. In 1984, Herb joined Genencor, a spin-off from Genentech, as Vice President of R&D. Over the past decade he co-founded three biotechnology companies including Eos, a functional genomics company, where he was until recently their Chief Technology Officer. Herb has a PhD in molecular genetics from the University of Leiden, the Netherlands, and is an author on more than 50 peer-reviewed papers.
Torben Orntoft is currently Chief Physician in the Department of Clinical Biochemistry, Aarhus University Hospital and Professor of Molecular Cancer Diagnostics, University of Aarhus in Denmark. He is also a co-founder and CEO of AROS Applied Biotechnology, a company that offers clinical services related to transcript profiling. Torben has more than 100 peer-reviewed journals to his name and has built up his speciality in taking molecular oncological diagnostics onto array platforms.
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