Collins Warns About a Lack of Oversight on Rising Personalized Medicine Market

Francis Collins, the leader of the government's genomics work, writes an op-ed piece about the rise of personalized medicine and sounds a warning in Sunday's Boston Globe. Collins writes:

The public is also in urgent need of education and guidance. Even the savviest consumer is likely to have difficulty interpreting the onslaught of advertisements from companies trying to hitch their wagons to the personalized medicine star.

These ads run the gamut from established medical laboratories offering tests for genes involved in susceptibility to serious diseases, such as breast cancer, to Internet opportunists making wild claims about being able to tailor diets or face creams to a person's DNA profile.

There is no way for consumers to gauge whether a genetic test is scientifically valid, let alone whether it is appropriate for them or reimbursable by their insurance companies. The lack of oversight of such tests leaves the average person vulnerable to misuses or mispresentation of what personalized medicine truly is.

Interesting to note that on my browser, the Google ads that were presented with the story were from RealGenetics [Test your DNA to find relatives], SeqWright [Genotyping, Mutagenesis, Synthesis. Shotgun Lib, SNPs, Contigs. GLP], and Applied Biosystems [See More Genes & Use Less Sample Complete Expression Analysis System].

The website Medical News Today covers a paper published in the July issue of the journal Nature Biotechnology describing a technology using quantum dots to identify genes.

"The idea is very simple and straightforward, but I think we're the first ones to make it work," said biomedical engineer Shuming Nie, of Indiana University, who led the researchers who published the paper.

In a side note, Charles Choi of UPI, in a recent article, notes that experts expect big legal battles in the quantum-dot intellectual property arena over the next few years.

David Ewing Duncan, a science writer and author of the book, "The Geneticist Who Played Hoops With My DNA ... and other masterminds from the frontiers of biotech," on Sunday penned an op-ed piece in the San Francisco Chronicle that says media should be more aware of biotechnology.

Society lavishes resources on their work and allows them to tinker with life itself, yet we know more about Paris Hilton than we do about people who are among the most powerful on Earth -- with the tools, knowledge and technology to create wonders or, if something goes wrong, to destroy us.

Deals

Today, Geron and Merck announced a licensing agreement to develop a cancer vaccine targeting telomerase, according to Reuters.

Under the agreement, Geron will receive an upfront payment, milestone payments, and royalties. Merck has also agreed to buy equity in Geron at a future date as part of Geron's next round of financing. Additional terms were not disclosed.

PR

The (UK) Guardian newspaper today posts an article on Roche, most interesting for its quotes from Jonathan Knowles, Roche head of R&D. Knowles tells the Guardian that deals are the key to success in the pharmaceutical market:

"The vast majority of science and medicine happens outside Roche," he said.

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The Los Angeles Daily News profiles Amgen.
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Why this interest in the biotech biggies? The Scotsman on Sunday published an article on the recent upward moves in the biotech stock sector.

Plant World

In an article from the Winston-Salem Journal, and reprinted in the Lexington Dispatch, David Rice reports on the establishment of the planting of genetically engineered rice in rural eastern North Carolina.

The rice is designed to produce proteins found in human milk, saliva, and tears, according to the article, reprinted in the Lexington (NC) Dispatch, which said Ventria Bioscience, the planter, has received two USDA permits to conduct the research at the state-owned Tidewater Research Station in Washington County. Originally, Ventria was attempting to grow the rice in Missouri, but St. Louis-based Anheuser-Busch said it would boycott buying any Missouri rice if that happened. Ventria capitulated and said it would not grow genetically modified rice within 120 miles of commercial rice crops.