Xactagen was founded by Robert E. Finney, Ph.D. in 2004. Bob's scientific team includes Darren Kamikura, Ph.D., and Lisa McKitrick, B.S.
Bob’s background is in molecular biology and pharmaceutical drug discovery. His career has had particular emphasis on target discovery, target validation, drug discovery, and evaluation of drug candidates using various in vitro and in vivo models. He has been responsible for leading drug discovery groups and for IND preparation.
It has always been difficult to identify and assign value to targets without very large investments in research. The cost is measured in dollars, time, and suboptimal drug candidates with limited chance for success in clinical trials. The problem is industry wide, as indicated by the increasing costs for drug discovery—with estimates in 2005 of $1.3 billion—correlated with fewer approvals for new chemical entities by the FDA. (For a discussion of the funding of medical research, click here.)
Xactagen was founded to improve drug discovery. Dr. Finney wanted improve drug development by creating systems to:
• Probe the entire human genome to identify potential targets,
• Eliminate suboptimal targets early,
• Efficiently identify the best drug candidates against the selected targets, and
• Identify biomarkers that better predict which patients benefit—or might be harmed—from a drug candidate.
The goal was to bring more benefits to patients faster by:
• Speeding up the drug discovery process,
•
Decreasing the number of patients needed for clinical
trials,
•
Reducing the costs of drug development.
The Xactagen gene expression reporter cell system meets these criteria. It provides superior drug candidates, the best patient populations for clinical trials, and the best shot for success. The processes and assays are recyclable: That is, they can be applied over and over again in short order to discover and develop new drug products.
We estimate that once a Xactagen reporter gene assay library is generated, potential drug targets can be identified within 2-3 weeks and a lead drug candidate identified within 6-9 months (including efficacy studies). Furthermore, we can simultaneously process many targets in an “assembly line” fashion.