If the AquAdvantage ® Salmon be approved as a food, then the gateway for many other genetically modified animals will be open, which are equipped with all sorts of new features. Just find a two-day hearing instead, after which the FDA will decide on the approval and the possible labeling. The Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) exerts massive pressure from, for permission to obtain for the transgenic salmon and announces already that a large number of transgenic animals from fish to goats and chickens to cows and pigs are in the pipeline

The genetically modified salmon, also called Franken-food like salmon, should not multiply, because only sterile female fish are bred. Therefore there is no danger that the transgenic salmon mixed with natural populations. However, the method of sterilization is not completely effective, but only 98 percent of the salmon so that it is a risk of dissemination. Because of its rapid growth, it could be grown in large tanks in the country with the use of groundwater, so that could be ruled a danger here. That will not reassure critics, however, could eventually also be held in the salmon farms in the sea and then spread there, but the new genes.

For the rapid growth actually provided by two genes, a growth differential of the king salmon and a regulatory gene of the North American eelpout (Zoarces americanus), which controls the production of a protein for frost protection and with the growth differential is turned on. The two genes (opAFP-GHc2) are installed with plasmids in the genome. The fast-growing gene pool will not only accelerate the breeding cycles and thus ensure higher profits, but allow Aqua Bounty, according to new farming systems that are supposedly better for the fish and the environment than traditional salmon farms. It adds that the overfishing of the seas are reduced by transgenic fish. Arguments against not only the risk that the transgenic fish could spread, but that is not known whether it represents a risk for human consumption, for example, can trigger allergies.

Interestingly, when the FDA approval not require is that the transgenic salmon to be labeled. If food is not “materially different” are, this should not be required. Because cloned animals and the transgenic salmon biologically no different from “traditional” species, even if the production process differently, there is no labeling requirement. may be differences, but between “wild” and farmed salmon.

The FDA, however, also makes it difficult for manufacturers and retailers to identify non-transgenic products. This fits, of course, the biotech industry, which refers That such labels confuse only the genetically uninformed customers that will simply eat what is offered. The “success” of genetically modified plant products in the U.S. is also due to the absence of identification through the lobby. It is expected that even U.S. citizens would not necessarily opt for genetically modified products if they had the choice, they are systematically denied. Alaska has adopted the only U.S. state to pass legislation that requires the labeling of genetically modified fish.

Some of the features required for function in a complex chemical network are undesirable when the catalyst is lifted out of context. Conversely many of the properties we wish enzymes would have clash with the needs of the organism, or at least were never required. The Arnold group is developing and using methods of directed evolution to explore the vast space of novel enzyme functions never explored in nature.

One very successful example has been the directed evolution of an enzyme to carry out the hydrolysis of a para-nitrobenzyl ester of an antibiotic (Moore & Arnold, Nature Biotechnology 14, 458-467 (1996) and Moore et al., J. Molecular Biol. 272, 336-347 (1997)). By applying sequential generations of random mutagenesis, recombination and screening, the enzyme’s catalytic efficiency was increased more than 100-fold.

More recently we evolved a cytochrome P450 monooxygenase to no longer require its ancillary electron-transfer proteins or any external cofactor (NADH) (Joo et al., Nature 399, 670-673 (1999)). The evolved enzymes hydroxylates its substrate using hydrogen peroxide rather than molecular oxygen, via the “peroxide shunt” pathway. While yielding powerful new catalysts for important synthetic reactions, this work clearly demonstrates that enzymes can acquire capabilities not found in naturally occurring organisms.

Because of the origin of allergies so far almost nothing is known beyond the statistical correlations or spurious correlations, and it mainly in the field of medicine was apparent progress, the culture is non-allergenic animals and plants is becoming more significant.

However, the first known attempt proved in this direction as “vaporware”: in 2006 claimed that later in “Lifestyle Pets” renamed company Allerca that they produce on the lookout for a way, the gene, the cat, the allergic protein “Fel d 1″ allows to switch off or remove animals came on to produce a protein respond to people far less allergic.

Sheldon Spector of the University of California at Los Angeles, in the scientific journal Nature alleging that a study performed by him revealed that Allerca cats are actually less allergenic published, but so far neither the study nor the underlying data. He himself had doubts about the results of food by the method used by him later as “experimental” designated .

BIO Announces First Biotechnology Partnering in India Event

WASHINGTON, DC (Wednesday, June 16, 2010) The Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) a two-day listings annual biotechnology partnering meeting to Be Held in Hyderabad, India on September 21-22. The Association of Biotechnology Led Enterprises (ABLE), a national forum representing The Indian biotechnology That sector, Will participate way as the local host.

“This Is The first exclusive forum of Its Kind in India. This event Will Bring Together Biotechnology and pharmaceutical leaders to explore Business Opportunities with India’s life science companies,” Said Alan Eisenberg, BIO’s executive vice president of Emerging Companies and Business Development. “India’s biotech and pharmaceutical space IS world class, and the number and type of collaborations Between Indian and U.S. or U.S. Companies Has grown Rapidly in the Past Few Years. We are seeing year INcreased number of discovery-based deals and innovative structures, in addition to development alliances. So, Launching the Bio ® India International Partnering Conference Builds Tremendous Amount was of Existing activity led by Indian companies. ”

The meeting Will Bring Together Biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies from the U.S., Europe and Asia to explore potential partnerships and collaborations. Private one-on-one meetings Between investors, large biotech and pharmaceutical companies and Emerging Biotech Companies Will Be Indian arranged-through BIO’s new state-of-the-art software.

BIO Brings to India more Than Ten Years of experience and expertise in biotech and pharmaceutical partnering. BIO IS ITS renowned for Successful partnering meetings in the U.S., Japan and Germany, Including the World’s Largest biotech partnering event, the Business Forum at the BIO International Convention. ABLE, BIO’s partner in India, bring to the meeting extensive local expertise and Its comprehensive network of Indian and Asian biotech and pharmaceutical companies.

Genetic material has been successfully delivered to a large number of different human cell types, and their phenotypes have been altered. For example, complementary DNA (cDNA) encoding the gene for ADA has been transferred to blood cells to treat ADA deficient children, cDNA encoding cytokines have been delivered to tumor cells in an attempt to elicit an anti-tumor immune response, and cDNA encoding the receptor for low density lipoprotein (LDL) has been delivered to the hepatocytes of patients suffering from familial hypercholesterolemia.

Most often, the genetic material is transferred ex vivo to tissue that has been removed from the patient . After gene transfer, the tissue is cultured and expanded in vitro, then reimplanted into the patient. If the target tissue cannot be removed or cultured in vitro (e.g., brain, heart, and lungs), the genetic material is injected directly into the patient, in vivo.

Despite several exciting early milestones in gene delivery, to date there are no examples of gene therapy ‘cures’ . One major reason for the lack of a major success is the current inability to efficiently deliver genetic material to target cells. Several gene transfer vector systems have been developed to deliver genetic material more efficiently, but this first generation of systems is somewhat crude and must be significantly improved before the potential of gene therapy can be unlocked. Fundamental engineering principles must be applied to gain a better understanding of the rate-limiting steps of the gene transfer process before the next generation of gene transfer technologies and methodologies can be rationally designed.

We will focus on recombinant retroviruses, although most of the principles discussed are applicable to all gene transfer systems. Recombinant retroviruses are the most common gene transfer vector used in human gene therapy clinical trials, primarily because they can enter most cell types, and they permanently integrate the genetic material into the genome of the target cell . Permanent genetic modification of the target cell is a distinct advantage when a long lasting treatment is desired, as in the treatment of hereditary or chronic disorders.

Unfortunately, recombinant retroviruses, like other gene transfer systems, have several limitations. The major drawback is that transduction efficiencies, defined as the number of gene copies delivered per target cell, are low. Recombinant retroviruses are also unable to: (1) infect nondividing cells, (2) transfer more than 8 kilobases of genetic material, and (3) easily target specific cell types and tissues. A discussion of these latter fundamental biological issues is, however, beyond the scope of this article.

Transduction efficiencies must be increased by improving recombinant retroviruses and methods to deliver them. Higher transduction efficiencies in ex vivo protocols would reduce the number of cells cultured outside the body and increase the expression of the therapeutic gene in each cell, increasing the likelihood of eliciting the desired biological effect. Higher transduction efficiencies in in vivo protocols would minimize the volume of retrovirus stock that must be injected into the body and maximize expression of the therapeutic gene in each cell.

In this article, the major factors that limit the transduction efficiency of retroviral-mediated gene transfer, as well as some of the strategies being used to overcome these limitations, will be discussed. Because the field of gene therapy has only recently been developed, the technology base for its application is also in its infancy. Thus, in anticipation of more comprehensive descriptions of retroviral-mediated gene transfer, which will undoubtedly come in the future as a result of more mature and detailed investigations, we offer a discussion of several exciting avenues of research where biomedical engineers have begun to contribute to the overall process.

Recombinant retroviruses consist of a two-part system composed of a retroviral vector and a packaging cell line. The retroviral vector is essentially the wild-type genome with all the viral genes removed. It encodes the therapeutic gene, regulatory sequences necessary for the expression of the gene, and a packaging sequence required for its efficient incorporation into virus particles.

The second part of the system is the packaging cell line, which expresses all the viral genes required to form an infectious virus particle. Gag encodes the proteins that form a capsid around the viral RNA genome. Pol encodes the enzymatic activities of the virus, including reverse transcriptase. Env encodes the virus attachment proteins (VAPs) that cover the surface of the virus particle.

VAPs are the primary determinant of the host range of the virus because they mediate the binding of the virus to its receptors on the cell surface. Amphotropic retroviruses, from which protrude VAPs that bind to the amphotropic receptor expressed in most human tissues, are used for human gene transfer because they can infect human cells.

Cells that produce recombinant retroviruses are made by transfecting the packaging cell line with the retroviral vector. The proteins encoded by gag and pol recognize the psi packaging sequence in the viral genomic RNA (transcribed from the transfected retroviral vector) and form a capsid around two identical copies of the viral genomic RNA. The capsid buds from the packaging cell line, acquires a lipid-bilayer with an array of protruding VAPs, and is shed into the surrounding culture medium, which is harvested and used as a viral stock.

The viral stock is then used to transduce (i.e., permanently integrate the therapeutic gene into the chromosomal DNA of) the target cells. Successful transduction requires the completion of a complex series of steps. The virus particles must first be transported to the surface of the cells where the VAPs of the viruses bind to their receptors. After the virus particles bind to their cell surface receptors, they enter the cell and release their RNA genomes into the cytoplasm.

The RNA genomes are reverse transcribed from RNA to DNA, transported into the nucleus, and integrated into the chromosomal DNA. Expression of the therapeutic genes is controlled by regulatory sequences genetically engineered into the retroviral vectors, or by viral regulatory sequences encoded in the long terminal repeats that bracket the ends of the integrated viral genomes.

Significant increases in virus titer have been achieved by optimizing cell culture conditions, such as by reducing the ratio of culture medium to cell number. Packaging cells seeded in the extra capillary space of a hollow fiber bioreactor, and grown to densities (108 cells per milliliter) about 100-fold higher than normally achieved in conventional cell culture flasks, produced virus stocks with titers (2 x 107 particles per milliliter) 18-fold higher than the titers of virus stocks generated in T-flasks.

The cell culture incubation temperature can also be optimized to increase virus concentrations. Kotani et al. increased the concentration of virus particles nearly tenfold by lowering the incubation temperature of packaging cells from 37oC to 32oC. Another possibility is to increase the concentration of virus particles by physically concentrating the virus stocks, although doing so without losing infectivity has proven difficult. Standard techniques such as centrifugation and ultra filtration have failed.

More recently, tangential flow and hollow fiber filtration have been shown to increase virus concentrations more than 30-fold with minimal losses in viral infectivity. Synthetic approaches have also been used to increase virus concentrations, such as the production of chimerical virus particles (particles composed of structural proteins derived from two or more viruses) that are easy to concentrate without loss of infectivity, and the construction of packaging cell lines designed to optimize viral protein expression.

Using the latter approach, Cosset et al. transected human HT-1080 cells with gag-pol and env expression plasmids, each encoding a different selectable marker. The selectable markers were expressed by reinitiating of translation of the mRNA encoding the viral proteins, which ensured that only cells expressing all the viral proteins would survive incubation in selective culture medium.

Titers as high as 3 x 107 infectious particles per milliliter were achieved, much higher than titers generated by previous packaging cell lines (105 to 106 infectious particles per milliliter)

The rapid decay of infectivity (the half-life at 37oC is about 6 to 8 hours) of retroviruses reduces transduction efficiencies because retrovirus binding and infection occurs over a period of several hours, during which time most of the infectivity of the retroviruses is lost. Infection continues for several hours because the virus particles are large (100 nm) and diffuse slowly.

Retrovirus particles move about 300 mum in one half-life (7 hours), or about one-tenth the distance from the top of the culture medium fluid to the surface of the cells. With current cell culture configurations, most of the virus particles lose their infectivity long before they reach the surface of the target cells. The decay rate of retroviruses could, in principle, be reduced by genetic methods once the mechanism of decay is known.
For now, simpler strategies have been adopted, such as transduction at 32oC instead of 37oC, which reduced the decay rate and increased transduction efficiencies. A second method of minimizing the effects of retroviral decay is to increase the encounter frequency, by centrifugation or convection, between the target cells and the virus particles.

Centrifugation increased the transduction efficiency of adherent NIH-3T3 fibroblasts three to ten-fold and non-adherent CD34+ blood cells six-fold. Convection of virus particles past target cells immobilized onto a porous membrane increased transduction efficiencies up to ten-fold. Both methods increased the rate at which virus particles bound and infected the target cells, and therefore decreased the adverse impact of retroviral decay on transduction efficiency.

Given further refinement, these methods have the potential to improve substantially the efficiency of most ex vivo gene transfer protocols. Transduction efficiencies can also be increased by altering the composition of the culture medium. For instance, addition of cationic polymers (e.g., polybrene, protamine, DEAE-dextran) or cationic lipids (e.g., 2,3-dioleyloxy-N-{2(sperminecarboxamido)ethyl}-N,N-dimethyl-1-propaninium trifluoroacetate (DOSPA) and dioleylph osphatidyl ethanolamine (DOPE)) to the culture medium before or during infection increases virus binding and transduction efficiency 10-fold or more.

The mechanism of enhancement has not been completely elucidated, but it is thought that the polymers adsorb to either the virus particles and/or the surface of the cell, and reduce the electrostatic repulsion between the two negatively charged entities. A better understanding of the mechanisms that underlie the enhancement of infection by cationic polymers and lipids might offer strategies for the design of better ‘binding enhancers’ and thus increase transduction efficiency.

It may also be possible to improve the culture environment for infection by removing substances from the culture medium, either viral or non-viral, that inhibit infection. Inhibitors can block infection by binding to the virus particles, binding to the virus receptors, or by other mechanisms that interfere with the normal life cycle of the virus particles. One recent study found that medium conditioned by virus-producing cells inhibited infection, and the authors speculated that non-infectious virus particles, or VAPs not associated with virus particles, were blocking infection by binding to virus receptors.

A recent study in our laboratory demonstrated that high-molecular-weight proteoglycans, present in viral stocks, inhibited infection. These high-molecular-weight inhibitors will most likely be co-concentrated with the virus particles by conventional concentration methods, producing a high-titer virus stock with, nonetheless, low transduction efficiency. To produce virus stocks with higher titers and transduction efficiencies, methods are needed that remove or eliminate these large-molecular-weight inhibitors, rather than co-concentrate them with the virus particles.

By culturing CD-4 enriched human peripheral blood lymphocytes in phosphate-free medium for 12 hours, transduction efficiency was increased more than ten-fold, presumably because expression of the amphotropic receptor was unregulated. Transduction efficiencies can also be increased by reducing the time required to complete intracellular steps of infection, thereby increasing the probability of completing transduction before the virus spontaneously loses infectivity.

One recent study found that reverse transcription does not occur exclusively in the cytoplasm as previously thought, but can occur outside the cell, inside extra cellular virus particles, when the virus particles are incubated in high concentrations of deoxyribo nucleoside triphosphates (dNTPs). Virus stocks that have been incubated with dNTPs contain significant amounts of viral DNA (reverse transcribed from the viral RNA) and are about 100-fold more efficient at infecting cells, possibly because the virus particles take less time to integrate into the chromosomal DNA once they enter the cytoplasm of the target cell.

It is also possible that virus particles that enter non-S phase cells, which generally have lower concentrations of dNTPs, might significantly benefit from having undergone at least some reverse transcription before cell entry. These studies demonstrated that reverse transcription can limit the efficiency of retroviral-mediated gene transfer, and that inefficiencies in reverse transcription can be partially overcome by incubation of viral stocks in dNTPs before transduction of the target cells.

Rapid entry into the nucleus is also crucial for maximizing transduction efficiency. Retroviral infection, with the exception of infection by human immunodeficiency virus, requires that the target cells pass through mitosis, most likely because the retroviral DNA complex cannot enter the nucleus until the nuclear envelope breaks down. In one experiment, quiescent cells, stimulated to divide only 6 hours after exposure to retroviruses, were not successfully infected, suggesting that intracellular virus particles are rapidly degraded.

If the intracellular half-life is shorter than the cell cycle rate, then the probability of infection will be strongly influenced by the cell cycle position and cycling rate of the host cell. Construction of recombinant retroviruses that have longer intracellular half-lives should significantly increase transduction efficiencies, especially in slowly dividing cells. Alternatively, transduction efficiencies might be increased by infecting cells at a stage of the cell cycle that maximizes the probability of successful transduction.

Another option is to design recombinant retroviruses that can infect cells that do not pass through mitosis. One approach involves the use of lent viruses (e.g., HIV, simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV)), which can infect non-dividing cells. Another strategy is to construct Mo-MuLV-based retroviruses that have sequences from HIV that allow them to pass through the nuclear envelope.

Both strategies are being actively pursued but vectors based on non-human viruses (e.g., SIV or Mo-MuLV) are preferred for obvious safety considerations. The development of recombinant retroviruses that could infect quiescent cells would not only enhance transduction efficiencies but would also greatly expand the number of target tissues that could be treated by retroviral-mediated gene transfer.

Medical products companies like Johnson & Johnson Co. and pharmaceutical giants like SmithKline Beecham (now GlaxoSmithKline) have been investing in smaller companies for years. But now they have far more company in the field than ever before.

The newcomers are entering the health care investment arena with at least one of three basic goals:

• To add to their own line of products. Cytyc Corp., for example, the developer of a new means of doing pap smears, has set up a venture unit to invest in companies that likewise are striving to create technologies for diagnosing cancer, or treating women.

• To assist their own customers. Quintiles Transnational Corp., which provides services to help biotech and pharmaceutical companies do a more efficient job tips of developing and launching products, established a venture program in October. The aim, said Ron Wooten, the unit’s president, is to bring a more “disciplined approach to how it puts dollars to work.” Quintiles intends to use some of the allotted capital to help customers that may have difficulty meeting the costs of clinical trials.

• To invest in companies capable of improving the efficiencies of their own business. Merck & Co. and Eli Lilly & Co., for example, both created venture programs to back companies that can speed drug development. Merck Capital Ventures just invested in one such company, Acurian Inc., which uses the Internet as a tool for recruiting patients and physicians for clinical trials.

But it is not just health care and pharmaceutical companies that have launched venture programs of relevance to health care VCs. Companies such as IBM Corp., Motorola Inc., and Compaq Computer Co. are investing in both life sciences start-ups and venture funds largely as a means to create demand among genomics companies for their computer hardware.

Likewise, Intel Corp., perhaps the most active of all corporate investors, is said to have an interest in life sciences companies using computers in their research.

The most effective investors, of course, may be those companies that know the health care industry because they’re part of it.

Cytyc, for example, has been through the rigors of getting a medical product to market; its FDA-approved diagnostic product, according to the Boxborough, Mass., company, is “significantly more effective” than traditional pap smears. Now Cytyc has allocated an undisclosed amount of capital to Cytyc Healthcare Ventures LLC for backing “companies and/or technologies that are of strategic interest to us, and our development,” said Cytyc CEO and President Patrick J. Sullivan.

Mr.Sullivan, who has served as Cytyc’s chief executive since 1994, will oversee the venture program. Cytyc Healthcare Ventures, he said, will invest at all stages and make “substantial” commitments alongside venture capital firms. The corporation, which as of late March had $88 million in cash on hand, expects to make a couple of deals per year, Mr. Sullivan said.

Although Cytyc is new to venture investing itself, the company received ample backing from venture firms before going public in 1996. Among its investors were Norwest Venture Partners, BancBoston Ventures, Advanced Technology Ventures, and Patricof & Co. Ventures Inc.

For Quintiles Transnational, PharmaBio Development, its formal corporate venturing program, grew out of the Durham, N.C., company’s practice of investing in life sciences venture capital funds.

Quintiles has made commitments of up to $9 million to the funds of six firms: A.M. Pappas & Associates, Durham; EuclidSR Partners, New York; Cardinal Partners, Princeton, N.J.; Thompson Clive & Partners Ltd., London; and Acacia Venture Partners and Alta Partners, both of San Francisco.

According to Mr. Wooten, the president of PharmaBio Development, Quintiles backed the venture firms in order to get a better look at companies with technology to expedite drug development.

PharmaBio Development already had made five direct investments of its own. Among its portfolio companies are Meristem Therapeutics, a French developer of recombinant protein technology, and Icagen Inc., a Durham drug discovery company that uses ion channel modulation.

The sizes of Quintiles’ investments generally are in the $2 million to $5 million range, Mr. Wooten said. All told, Mr. Wooten expects Quintiles to invest approximately $150 million over the next few years directly in companies as well as in venture funds.

PharmaBio Development aims both to increase Quintiles’ margins and to help to support companies with technologies that could be of use to its clients. Because it takes a lot of capital to launch a new drug in the marketplace, Quintiles will, in some cases, absorb a percentage of the cost of launching the product, and take a royalty fee on revenue generated by the product, as well as warrants.

In the case of Scios Inc., PharmaBio will provide $35 million in funding toward the commercialization of the Sunnyvale, Calif., company’s main product, which is designed to treat congestive heart failure.

Mr. Wooten said Quintiles is footing 30 percent of the cost of the launch of the product, in exchange for revenue from sales, as well as warrants. “We will take risks with some products in order to get higher margins,” he said.

Perhaps Merck and Eli Lilly are diverging the farthest from their core business. Unlike S.R. One Ltd., the venture arm of GlaxoSmithKline and one of the first corporate venturing programs created, Merck Capital Partners and e.Lilly won’t invest in companies making new drugs.

Instead, like IBM and other computer-industry companies, both pharmaceutical giants are concentrating on businesses that can use information technology to streamline drug development.

To VCs, however, these markets aren’t so small. And many have built successful companies around unwanted compounds they’ve acquired in exchange for milestone and royalty payments.

Now, in a move that could drive up the price for venture investors interested in these compounds, GlaxoSmithKline plc has established a unit through which it would take stakes in companies in return for turning over discarded intellectual property to them.

Called the Genetics & Discovery Ventures Group, the unit is shooting to return a “large” but unspecified financial gain to GlaxoSmithKline within the next three years, said Lisa M. Gray, head of the group’s venture operations.

To meet its goals, the unit intends to swap those non-core assets in exchange for a percentage, usually less than 20 percent, of the company licensing this technology. This compensation potentially could be significantly higher than current price tags that are based on a percentage of the sales generated by the new drug.

Ms. Gray said that the current system has a key disadvantage for the corporation getting rid of the compound. Typically, she said, the company receiving the compound or technology is responsible only for the up-front payment. If the technology is never successfully developed, the corporation that sold it will obtain little in the way of additional returns.

Under the program rolled out by GlaxoSmithKline, Genetics & Discovery Ventures Group would benefit from the new company’s growth, even if the licensed compound never makes it out of clinical trials. And the companies that Genetics & Discovery Ventures will target, Ms. Gray said, are likely to have a portfolio of other products.

Such a program could change the equation considerably for venture capitalists if other pharmaceutical companies follow GlaxoSmithKline’s example. In addition to seeing the acquisition of compounds coming at a higher price, venture investors also will need to look at pharmaceutical companies as potential equity partners, not just as sources of partially developed products.

GlaxoSmithKline’s 7-person unit, led by Osagie Imasogie, already has handled its first deal, teaming up with publicly traded FLIR Systems Inc. to license infrared imaging to Thermogenic Imaging Inc. The newly formed company, located in Billerica, Mass., is developing a system using thermal radiation to measure the impact of compounds on parts of the body.

Genetics & Discovery Ventures, Ms. Gray said, will be looking primarily to relatively mature companies, ones either preparing to go public or seen as undervalued on the public market. “We want to see a capability to develop the asset,” she said.

The unit, according to Ms. Gray, will focus on four non-core assets: terminated drug compounds, platform technologies, databases and pure intellectual property.

“We’re like a venture firm,” Ms. Gray said. “The distinction is that they use cash to get stakes,” while “we use intellectual property or assets.”

It is not uncommon for drug companies to terminate compounds because they are too small to generate set revenue goals. GlaxoSmithKline, for example, wants its drugs to bring in £500 million ($720 million) a year. So, a compound that might only bring in £200 million would be cast aside.

Ms. Gray believes that plenty of companies might have an interest in such compounds and assets. She cites a saying of Mr. Imasogie, the Nigerian-born leader of the unit, that “the crumbs of an elephant’s meal is a feast for an ant”-a proverb borne out by the venture-backed companies created in recent years specifically to acquire compounds from pharmaceutical companies.

San Diego-based Prometheus Laboratories Inc., last month raised $95 million to acquire four pharmaceutical products. AlgoRx Pharmaceuticals Inc., meanwhile, received seed funding to license and develop prescription pain management drugs that large pharmaceutical companies have decided not to pursue. InterWest Partners, Menlo Park, led the financing.

Prometheus, AlgoRx Pharmaceuticals and others hope to follow the course of The Medicines Company, which went public last year. The company was set up to acquire compounds from corporations, and then license and develop them.

Because Genetics & Discovery Ventures intends to limit its stake in companies to less than 20 percent, the companies will be able to sell products to other pharmaceutical companies without fear of conflict of interest, Ms. Gray said.