Cellzome CEO, Charles Cohen
(2 of 8)
Celltech
Public company based in Slough, England
• Group Chief Executive: Peter Fellner
• What it does: Focuses on treatments for immune and inflammatory disorders and cancer, encompassing both injectable antibodies and orally delivered small molecules.
• Why it's hot: Celltech has a profitable pharmaceutical business and seven products in advanced development, including drugs that can be used to treat rheumatoid arthritis and Crohn's disease.
celltechgroup.com
Cellzome
Private company based in Heidelberg, Germany
• CEO: Charles Cohen
• What it does: Specializing in functional proteomics, Cellzome is able to characterize and unravel the protein interactions in cells within a specific molecular context such as the progression of disease or the action of a drug.
• Why it's hot: In a January article in Nature magazine, Cellzome scientists — in collaboration with other researchers — were the first to publish a comprehensive map of protein complexes in a whole organism, yeast. This breakthrough is expected to help researchers more fully understand the roles of individual proteins.
cellzone.com
Epigenomics
Private company based in Berlin, Germany
• CEO: Alexander Olek
• What it does: Its technology promises to make it possible to diagnose, at a very early stage, the presence, the exact type and the treatment opportunities for cancer — from studying a drop of blood or urine.
• Why it's hot: Epigenomics detects dna methylation patterns, the "on" and "off" signals for genes, and creates a digitized readout for each tissue. Methylation patterns can be correlated with kidney, prostate and blood cancer. As growing cancer secretes dna, methylation profiles can be obtained from body fluids, making biopsies unnecessary.
epigenomics.com
Immuno-Designed Molecules
Private company based in Paris, France
• CEO: Jean-Loup Romet-Lemonne
• What it does: Developing a new family of products called Cell Drugs that boost the immune system in patients weakened through diseases like cancer.
• Why it's hot: These Cell Drugs offer new treatment options for patients with ovarian, skin, bladder and prostate cancers. Earlier this year IDM struck a partnership with SanofiSynthlabo for the development and marketing of idd3, idm's Cell Drug for the treatment of melanoma.
idm-biotech.com
NicOx
Public company based in Sophia Antipolis, France
• CEO: Michele Garufi
• What it does: Exploits the therapeutic potential of nitric oxide, which plays a critical role in a range of human biological functions. The technology grafts a nitric oxide-releasing structure onto existingdrugs to increase potency and reduce side effects.
• Why it's hot: NicOx wants to expand its applications from treating pain and inflammation to cardiovascular and respiratory diseases. It completed the largest secondary offering in the European biotech sector in 2001.
nicox.com
Qiagen
Public company based in Venlo, the Netherlands
• CEO: Metin Colpan
• What it does: Provides the enabling technologies and products for the separation, purification and handling of nucleic acids.
• Why it's hot: Qiagen's products are sold to academic institutions as well as pharmaceutical and biotech companies in more than 32 countries. Now the company wants to expand into commercial markets such as dna sequencing, genomics, genetic vaccination and gene therapy.
qiagen.com
RiboTargets
Private company based in Cambridge, England
• CEO: Simon Sturge
• What it does: Focuses on novel ways to combat cancer as well as bacterial and viral infections.
• Why it's hot: Using high-tech tools the company can rapidly screen drug candidates for both proteins and nucleic acids then use the information to design drugs that act at the molecular level.
ribotargets.com