You co-founded Precision NanoSystems in 2010 - what was the reason, what is the company's main aim and what is the rationale behind joining Danaher?
Our mission is to accelerate the creation of transformative medicines, impacting fields like infectious diseases and oncology. We founded Precision (PNI) to enable drug developers to create nucleic acid based medicines faster and with less risk. PNI develops a full stack of technologies for the creation of nanoparticle delivered genomic medicines, including our NanoAssemblr microfluidic-based continuous flow nanoparticle manufacturing platform and GenVoy lipid nanoparticle platform for RNA delivery. We strive to enable any scientist to be a genomic medicine developer and work with many of the leading genomic medicine biopharmaceutical companies in the field.
PNI was acquired by Danaher in 2021 with the goal of providing deeper and more comprehensive solutions to genomic medicine developers, and to accelerate the development of transformative medicines for patients.
The cost of sequencing the human genome dropped dramatically in the past 20 years - what does this actually mean for Precision’s work?
DNA sequencing is one side of the coin - namely the ability to measure and to understand a disease molecularly. We work on the other side of the coin; using genomics and the delivery of RNA and DNA molecules into cells, to affect the genetic basis of a disease. The range of nucleic acid technologies in the genomic medicine toolbox is extensive, and now allows for the ability to turn off a gene that is causing disease, or to express a protein that is missing, or even edit directly in the genome. This is a really powerful approach to medicine, and at this point in time we are focusing on enabling medicines to address highly unmet medical needs.
You partnered up with Replicate Bioscience a few months ago in a licensing deal to scale up genomic medicines - what is this partnership about?
Precision’s goal is to enable companies working on RNA to develop and manufacture in a more efficient way and with less risk. Our partnership with Replicate Bioscience is to help to develop nanoparticle delivered self-amplifying RNA medicine.
What are the main ways in which genomics can change the landscape of medicine in the coming years?
We are living in an incredibly important time for genomics and for medicine.
Unlike traditional medicines, which are developed based on the structure of proteins or small molecules which are an analogue technology, genomic medicines are based on the sequence of the RNA or DNA molecule, representing a digital technology.
As in other analogue to digital transformations, this impact on medicine is revolutionary. A critical bottleneck, however, is that the RNA or DNA molecules need to be delivered directly into cells to have their effect. Nanoparticle delivery is a key technology for the delivery of RNA and at PNI our goal is to lower this barrier and enable new nanoparticle delivered RNA medicines and unlock the full potential of genomic medicines.
How do you source the right talent for an industry that is particularly sophisticated and relatively new?
Vancouver is the right place to be - it is a center of excellence for all things nanoparticle related. The community here has been developing nanoparticle delivery systems for 40+ years, and we have a critical mass of academics and companies that are very acquainted with the technology - some of the people in our company have been manufacturing nanoparticle drugs for patients for more than 20 years. In a nutshell, talent for Precision becomes a surpassable challenge due to our privileged location.
Where would you like to find Precision in 10 years time?
Our goal is to enable more innovative medicines to get to patients faster and at lower costs. We focus on developing innovative manufacturing and delivery technologies to enable innovative solutions for our drug development customers. We are also focused on leveraging the full power of being part of the Danaher Life Sciences Platform, and we are working closer and closer with our sister companies at Danaher to achieve the solutions that are needed to serve our mutual customers. We believe that any scientist can be a genomic medicine developer. We are helping to unlock the expansive creativity of the scientific community to make transformative genomic medicines.
