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EXECUTIVE MANAGEMENT TEAM
Russel Howard, Ph.D.: CEO
John Bedbrook, Ph.D: Pres. Agriculture
Willem P. C. Stemmer, Ph.D.: VP Research
Simba Gill, Ph.D.: CFO, VP Business Development
Joseph Affholter, Ph.D.: VP Biocatalysis and Chemical Processing
Latest Financial Reports
Maxygen evolved out of a family of other successful biotech spinoffs from
Glaxo-Wellcome holdings in 1997 and seems organized largely around leveraging
their technology for generating “new and improved” versions
of known gene products. So, it comes as no surprise that Maxygen’s
apparent strategy is to apply the unique opportunities offered by their
technology to many different sectors of the industrial biology marketplace.
This company is already involved in agribusiness, the pharmaceutical industry,
and industrial biocatalysts via its partnerships (i.e. pharmaceuticals-DSM,genetically
modified food products-DuPont & AstraZeneca, and biocatalysts-Novo
Nordisk). So, with such a wide variety of potential projects, how
do they choose arenas in which to focus? At least two components
of their decision making process are verystraightforward. Products
are considered for both their market value as well as facile “testability”
of optimization during the “directed evolution” process.
Perhaps initially, their strategy also appears to include choosing projects
for which collaborative support is negotiable. Strategic partnerships
exist with Novo Nordisk (5 year, started 1997), Dupont/Pioneer Hi-Bred
(5 year, started 1998), DSM (3 year, 1999), and AstraZeneca (5 year, 1999)
totaling 67 million dollars of guaranteed support with additional milestone
payments potentially in excess of 145million. Interestingly, Maxygen
also has approximately 27 million dollars worth of governmental grant
commitments.
If Maxygen is viewed as yet another company attempting to apply molecular
biology to agricultural, pharmaceutical, and biocatalyst industries, then
they have a lot of competitors (regardless of the specific technologies).
But, even without a revolutionary technology, Maxygen’s organization
seems designed to survive and profit in the long run. An uncommon
quality, perhaps, among many new biotechnology offerings. With its
empirical “directed evolution” technology so diversely applied,
it seems likely to generate steady revenues for some time to come. But
obviously, public reluctance to support genetically modified agricultural
products has the potential to hurt Maxygen’s performance.
However, I do not expect any damage coming from that “high press
coverage” corner to be too serious. The amount of capital Maxygen
has raised since becoming public is substantial and makes them less dependent
on partnerships with GM-interested food developers for the generation
of future products.
I have been following Maxygen since before it went public. And there
is one question that I would like to ask Norman Kruse, Maxygen’s
Vice President of intellectual property: What is Maxygen’s expectation
of patent law regarding more “evolved” versions of protein
and gene sequences that already exist in public databases? Furthermore,
what is the precedent for patent protection against slightly altered versions
of previously patented recombinant proteins? Maxygen shows promise
as a producer of valuable new and/or modified proteins. But, if
the law is in their favor, they have the potential to gain marketshare
against patented products by virtue of slight (or, perhaps, not so slight)
superiority.
SCIENCE/TECHNOLOGY
Their “Directed Evolution” or “Molecular Breeding”
Technologies consist of DNAShufflingTM (gene recombination) and MaxyScan™
(gene product screening). I recommend Willem Stemmer’s publications
to any interested party (www.maxygen.com). While some academics
may criticize its empirical nature, their technology is very interesting
simply from a purely scientific point of view. Roger Tsien might even
want to consider a partnership for developing his FRET based calmodulin-GFP
calcium sensor into a version with faster kinetics. Also,
their scientific advisory board includes many well-known, respected scientists:
Francis Arnold, Baruch S. Blumberg, Arthur Kornberg, Joshua Lederberg,
and Alejandro C. Zaffaroni. Maxygen holds numerous patents covering
aspects of its headlining technology as well as others concerned with
individual products. Their web pages contain patent and publication lists.
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