GlycoMinds sits in the middle of a shopping center in Maccabim, not in a science park or high tech center. From this unusual location, the company claims that it has become the world leaders of the glycomics field (the study and bioinformatics of glyco-matter and complex, carbohydrate-containing molecules, called glycans). The company held its second financing round at the beginning of November, raising $7.1 million, and says it is negotiating a cooperation agreement with one of the world’s largest chip manufacturers. “We’re in the middle of valuation proceedings with a number of companies in the chip field,” says GlycoMinds cofounder and CEO Avinoam Dukler. “The goal is to add their chips to the existing platform.”
In late 1998, Dukler and GlycoMinds cofounder, president and chief scientific officer Nir Dotan decided, as they put it, that preparations should be made for the post-genomic era. “They told us then that mapping the human genome would take another five years,” Dukler recalls. “No one expected it would be over so soon, and include such a leap forward in proteomics. We realized, however, that developments in the DNA field also had to be applied to the glycomics field.” The company was founded in 1999, and now “we find ourselves in an advantageous position. We already have solutions in the field, while others are just beginning to look for them,” says Dukler.
Of a similar mind was Israel's Millennium Materials Technologies fund and German company Schott Glas, which manufactures fiber optics and switches, and biological chips on glass slides. Schott Glas is considered a strategic investor. Another, unnamed Israeli fund has invested in the company. $1.3 million was raised from private investors in the first round.
What is glycomics and why is it important? In addition to genomics and protein structure problems, every cell also has a sugar coating, called glycans. These are usually either connected to the membrane proteins on the outside of the cell or embedded within the membrane itself. The role of the glycans is actually to mediate between cells by transmitting signals, inserting white blood cells into the cell, and so forth. Most proteins have additional glycans nearby.
”When the image of a protein is displayed,” Dukler says, “they usually forget to add to the image the glycan connected to it, which actually doubles the weight of the molecule and expands its internal space. Mentioning proteomics without glycomics is like saying the genome is enough by itself. 95% of membrane proteins are linked to glycans, as are 50% of the proteins within the cell.”
The glycans provide proteins with various “decorations”, resembling a person’s clothes, from a tuxedo to a bathing suit. These ornaments are linked to dozens of available glycans. In other words, two identical proteins can have different types of glycans. Dukler demonstrates this by comparing Biogen’s (Nasdaq: BGEN) Avonex with Serono’s (Nasdaq: SRA) Rebif: “They’re all made out of identical proteins, but they’re not the same drug. The difference lies in the glycans.”
On the genome level, humans resemble other mammals and are almost 100% identical to each other. On the glycome level, however (glycomes are the glycans making up the organism), the difference is vast, even between two humans. Due to concerns about how this difference may change the effect of drugs and alter their side effects, pharmaceutical companies are leaving the glycan component in drugs as is. Dukler comments, “Currrent drug development is faulty, because the glycans are left out of the calculation. This is no secret; the pharmaceutical companies are aware of it.”
This is where GlycoMinds would like to come into the picture: “We’re trying to help drug companies understand the structure: where the glycan is located, what it does, whether some drugs can be given to one part of the population and not to another,” Dukler says. The company’s founders are counting on the expanding R&D budgets of the major pharmaceutical companies and their desire to tailor their drugs more accurately. Incidentally, in contrast with genomics, which stresses individual tailoring for each patient, glycomics is based on population groups, classified by blood type, for example (Dukler: "It’s the glycans that creates different blood types.”). The goal is to do research for the large pharmaceutical companies in the pre-clinical phase on the effects of glycans on various diseases.
Until now, glycan tests were only performed manually, with test tubes. Another of GlycoMinds’ innovations is the high throughput (large-scale computer processing) of glycans. This will be accomplished by using the company’s glycomic chips, which facilitate the analysis of interactions between glycans and proteins. For example, dipping a chip in a blood sample yields a profile of all the glycan-linked proteins in the sample. Another chip scans many glycans in a large number of proteins and displays the strength of the connection between them. “Anyone dealing with chips begins to understand that DNA and proteins aren’t enough,” Dotan says. "We're beginning to sell basic platforms through cooperation agreements. But we also have practical programs for developing leads in the field.”
Selling chips is only one part of GlycoMinds’ business model. In any event, Dotan explains, “We’re very close to making sales. We get requests almost every day.” Director of business development Asaf Halevi predicts that the company wil sell several hundred chips next year, and will later sell tens of thousands. The product that will be sold could be either a single chip or a chip within an existing DNA or protein chip.
The main pillar of the business model is providing assistance to drug developers. “It sounds big and difficult,” Dukler admits, “but we’ve already begun to locate targets and leads. We want to function as a drug development company with solutions in the field.” They expect to cooperate with a large pharmaceutical company at the beginning of 2002 (Dukler: “Even when the deal is signed, we won’t be able to talk about it, because they asked us not to”). The company’s research is now focusing on cancer, infectious diseases, and autoimmune diseases.
What is the third part of the business model? A glycomic database, which no laboratory has had up until now. GlycoMinds claims to have the world’s largest database of glycans, with 6,000 sequences and details of their biological functions. Furthermore, they even took the trouble to translate the code. In contrast to the genome, written in four letters that repeat themselves, the mathematical code describing glycan chemical structure is composed of complex formulas replete with parentheses, inverted commas, and Greek letters. The company has translated these into a fairly simple “intuitive syntax.” Dukler: We got an offer to make this language the market standard. We could have made it available for global use, but we would have had to surrender our intellectual property. We decided to keep it as our property.”
”Globes”: Isn’t that a shame? You could have gone down in history.
Dukler: ”The language is less important than the information. Furthermore, we chose not to sell data; that’s of no interest to us. We don’t want to be a reincarnated Celera Genomics or Compugen (Nasdaq: CGEN); we want to provide solutions for dividing glycomes into groups and examining the significance of each group for the major pharmaceutical companies. Time will tell whether we chose correctly. Not everyone remembers who invented the DNA mapping method.”
Dotan: ”Our intellectual property is protected. On the other hand, the market’ nature is to forget quickly. People’s need for our products will make us the de facto standard.”
Dukler: ”We’ll sell licenses to use it. The need for our solutions is a big enough advantage”
The company’s ambitions, however, go far beyond just selling solutions. The company sees that biotechnology is not as poor as it once was, and is demanding its proper share. Dukler: “We see that all the mergers are creating large market values and big money in the field. This facilitates the creation of a big group vis-a-vis the pharmaceutical companies. We prefer to be conservative and start out using the usual methods that biotechnology companies utilize in dealing with the pharmaceutical companies – payments for development stages and sales royalties. Of course we want to be Millennium, InSight Biotechnology, Vertex, and CuraGen combined. We provide a platform. To become big, however, you need luck, a good market, and the platform. Up until now, we’ve been basically going in the right direction.”
Dotan: ”That’s our competitive advantage. It’s obvious competitors will appear; there’s no doubt about it.”
Wait a minute – aren’t there any competitors now?
Dukler: ”There’s ThermoHybaid, a British company trying to convert DNA chips to glycomics chips. We don’t just preserve information, though – we also preserve the glycan sequence, comparisons between a mouse and a human, and many other parameters. All the glycan sequences have been validated and their biological functions defined.””
By the way, what’s the next stage after genomics, proteomics, and glycomics?
Halevi: ”Efficiency. All parts of the picture will be combined. Eventually, everyone will have to work together.”
Published by Israel's Business Arena on January 2, 2002