Making Money from the Interactome

Making Money from the Interactome

© THOM GRAVES

As companies consider their roles in the massive human interactome project, they are keeping in mind some hard-learned lessons. Chief among their case studies is Celera Genomics, which proved that databases cannot, per se, be a firm's main revenue source.

"Companies don't talk anymore about the raw data they can amass for protein-protein interactions," says Douglas Loe, a healthcare analyst at Versant Partners. "Investors realized that any drug developer that acquired that information would still be somewhere between 10 and 15 years away from commercializing a drug based on the information."

As a result, most proteomics firms have "transformed themselves into more conventional drug-development companies," by either developing products in-house or out-licensing them once they have significant supporting data, Loe explains. Geoff Houlton, a healthcare analyst with Octagon Capital, says the new business model means at least the...