A Hidden Company Pursuing RNA Interference – Cepheid

by Michael Shulman
BiotechBlitz



Sometimes, you gotta hear management in person.

Last week, at the UBS Life Sciences Conference, I attended a presentation by one of my favorite companies, Cepheid (CPHD). It is getting traction, in the real world and on Wall Street, due to rapid acceptance of a new test for MRSA -- the killer hospital acquired staff infection highly resistant to treatment.

I knew all this entering the room, and when I walked downstairs to the breakout (smaller) Q&A session with the CEO and chief scientific bearded type -- an ex of the Mayo Clinic -- I planned to sit back and see how they answered other people’s questions.

And someone asked a great one about their micro RNA strategy.

A couple of posts ago I mentioned Rosetta Genomics (ROSG) as a play on micro RNA -- the latest and greatest version of RNA interference, and a way of manipulating RNA and gene expression to treat or diagnose diseases. I had no idea CPHD was in the micro RNA business – if you read their financial documents, press releases and Web site, nada. So I sat up.

Turns out they have identified “several hundred” micro RNA they have surrounded by their intellectual property and these may, and I repeat may, be valuable in creating blood tests for biomarkers for solid tumor cancers -- lung, etc. A breakthrough of this sort would literally save hundreds of thousands of lives as many solid tumor cancers are diagnosed too late because they don't cause pain or symptoms early on. This would propel the company into a new area of diagnostics.

Just thought I would pass it along -- and given CPHD's track record in developing genetic based diagnostics of disease, this is a very interesting development.




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