Sistemic setting up in US

24-Nov-2009 - Last updated on 24-Nov-2009 at 10:47 GMT

Sistemic is targeting the US by setting up an office in Boston, Mass, from which it will promote its services that use miRNA to identify and understand a compound’s activity in a simpler way than genomics or proteomics.

The services use miRNA to match a compound against a particular drug activity, class or mechanism of action and, following “a very rapid positive industry response” since launching in Europe, these will be promoted in the US.

“We believe Sistemic can rapidly penetrate the [US] market and are projecting sales of around $500,000 (€334,000) in 2010”, Chris Hillier, CEO of the company, said to Outsourcing-Pharma.

Hillier predicts this growth will result in the US becoming Sistemic’s largest market, generating 70 per cent of global sales, and the importance of the region is reflected in the company’s decision to establish an office there in its first year of trading.

There will be five people employed at the sales and marketing office, which could increase if US generated revenues grow sufficiently, and these staff will target pharma and biotech in Boston and beyond.

Sistemic’s office will be located in Scottish Development International’s (SDI) incubator in Boston, Massachusetts, US, which also houses contract research organisation (CRO) ClinTec. Hillier added that SDI “has been incredibly supportive from the inception of Sistemic”.

The business began trading in early 2009 and within a few months had won a major pharma contract, according to Hillier. Since then the company has “quickly built up a healthy network of clients, co-developers, and collaborators that are helping [it] to grow [its] product base”.

Directing drug development

Sistemic is built on its ability to look at the highly defined patterns of miRNA to guide drug development. A single miRNA can modulate the actions of large numbers of biological pathways.

Furthermore, there are only about 1,000 miRNAs and this makes identifying and understanding activity “relatively simple” compared to genomic, post-genomic or proteomic analysis which have from 40,000 to millions of genes, mRNAs and derived structures respectively.

Using its system Sistemic can match a compound against a particular drug activity, class or mechanism of action. In addition the process can screen against a known adverse event or “simply act as a highly sensitive QC (quality control) measure”.

Hillier added that these capabilities can help clients with drug repositioning, toxicology screening and stem cell research. Sistemic is working with Roslin Institute’s scientists, many of whom were involved in the cloning of Dolly the Sheep, to make stem cell technologies successful.