Good afternoon everyone,
In my spare time, I enjoy following the stock market. What can I say? It's pretty interesting. At any rate, I've been following this new synthetic biology company named Intrexon. Have you ever heard of it? If not, allow me to enlighten you ;-)
Intrexon Corporation develops transcriptional therapeutics for critical human diseases. Its goal is to make protein drugs far more cheaply and efficiently than is possible today. In addition, to transform living cells into tiny molecular factories to make everything from gasoline to construction materials. Some of their scientists even want to create entire new life forms from scratch. Cool, right?
At the moment, Intrexon is working on better protein-based drugs, gene therapy, industrial enzymes, and ag-biotech. What makes this company so great is...Almost nobody has heard of it and its lead scientist Thomas Reed. Thomas Reed is “the Henry Ford of DNA” and he figured what bioengineers needed to turn fantasy to fact was a library of standardized DNA components that could then be used to construct designer genes from scratch. He has spent the last ten years trying to build them and has come up with of 70,000 DNA parts that can be used to control gene expression.
Originally, Reed’s idea was to be a service business that sold DNA parts to researchers in academia and industry but w/ the encouragement of Randal J. Kirk this idea has developed into something BIGGER. In 2009, Mr. Kirk took over as chief executive of Intrexon and created distinct divisions for making various applications of Reed’s modular DNA technology.
With that being said, Intrexon is currently in the early stages of developing this new gene therapy method. This method aims to deliver powerful immune system proteins just where they are needed to kill cancer cells while avoiding healthy tissues. The first version of it, in testing for metastatic melanoma, takes immune system dendritic cells from the body and modifies them with Reed’s synthetic DNA so they can produce high levels of a cancer-killing protein called IL-12. They are injected back into the tumor, where they become little bioreactors that release IL-12. Sharpening its efficacy, the gene therapy is not activated until a patient takes a pill, controlling how much of the protein is released at what time.
To move the gene therapy work forward, Captain Kirk (lol) inked a deal in January for a 12% stake of Ziopharm Oncology, a biotech company led by former Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center surgeon Jonathan Lewis. It will move the IL-12 drug and other cancer gene therapy approaches through human trials while Intrexon continues to work on basic science.
With that being said, do you believe Captain Kirk's plan will work? Do you believe Intrexon's new gene therapy will be a sucess? Personally, I do. Hence, the reason why I'm choosing to share this info w/ you. At any rate, I hope you enjoyed this so-called company profile on Intrexon. For more info check out the following links:
The Next Big Move for The Smartest Biotech Investor
Blackburg's Intrexon: Branching out in Biotech
Intrexon Official website
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