Type | Defunct |
---|---|
Industry | Biotechnology |
Founded | 1980 |
Defunct | 1996 |
Fate | acquisition by Wyeth |
Successor | Wyeth |
Headquarters | Cambridge, MA, United States |
Genetics Institute, Inc. was a biotechnology research and development company founded by Thomas Maniatis and Mark Ptashne, two Harvard molecular biologists, in 1980 in Massachusetts. Originally operating out of Ptashne's house in Boston, the company found more spacious quarters first in Boston and then Cambridge before expanding further. Gabriel Schmergel joined soon afterwards as CEO. [1]
Many leading scientists joined G.I. from academia and it proved to be a fertile source of patents for some time. [2]
One of the two largest national clusters of biotechnology in the U.S. (the other being the San Francisco Bay area), the greater Boston area has been the birthplace of many innovative corporations and non-profit research centers. Beginning in the late 1970s and 1980s, this biotech trend saw three early large for-profit corporations: Biogen (now Biogen Idec), Genzyme, and Genetics Institute. MIT's Whitehead Institute was one of the seminal non-profit research centers in this field locally, among many others. Aside from MIT, Harvard, Boston University and several teaching hospitals including Massachusetts General Hospital and Brigham and Women's were important contributors to the local field's development. [3] [4]
G.I.'s Products (or potential candidates for products) included forms of M-CSF, interleukin-3, interleukin-11 (Neumega), bone morphogenetic protein 2,recombinant human Factor IX, and recombinant human Factor VIII (Recombinate); as well as tissue plasminogen activator and erythropoetin that both involved costly, complex lawsuits over patent infringement with competitors. [5] [6]
Toward the end of its independent existence, G.I. created a program to share "a library of several thousand genes and their related proteins that could be scanned for potential new drugs." [7]
This program was based on a G.I. technology that allowed it to identify proteins secreted by cells and therefore more likely to be therapeutic in the body.
Wyeth (American Home Products at the time) acquired a majority interest in GI in 1992 and the remaining interest at the end of 1996. [8] The company became part of Wyeth's Research division. [9]
Walter Gilbert is an American biochemist, physicist, molecular biology pioneer, and Nobel laureate.
Biogen Inc. is an American multinational biotechnology company based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, specializing in the discovery, development, and delivery of therapies for the treatment of neurological diseases to patients worldwide.
Susan Hockfield is an American neuroscientist who served as the sixteenth president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology from December 2004 through June 2012. Hockfield succeeded Charles M. Vest and was succeeded by L. Rafael Reif, who had served in her administration as Provost. Hockfield was the first biologist and the first woman to serve as the Institute's president. Hockfield currently serves as a Professor of Neuroscience in MIT's Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, a Joint Professor of Work and Organization Studies in MIT’s Sloan School of Management, and a member of the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research. She is also a director of Break Through Cancer, Cajal Neuroscience, Fidelity Non-Profit Management Foundation, Lasker Foundation, Mass General Brigham, Pfizer, Repertoire Immune Medicines, and the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research; a lifetime member of the MIT Corporation; and a board member of the Belfer Center at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. Before returning to MIT following her presidency, Hockfield held the Marie Curie Visiting Professorship at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government.
Stanley Norman Cohen is an American geneticist and the Kwoh-Ting Li Professor in the Stanford University School of Medicine. Stanley Cohen and Herbert Boyer were the first scientists to transplant genes from one living organism to another, a fundamental discovery for genetical engineering. Thousands of products have been developed on the basis of their work, including human growth hormone and hepatitis B vaccine. According to immunologist Hugh McDevitt, "Cohen's DNA cloning technology has helped biologists in virtually every field". Without it, "the face of biomedicine and biotechnology would look totally different." Boyer cofounded Genentech in 1976 based on their work together, but Cohen was a consultant for Cetus Corporation and declined to join. In 2022, Cohen was found guilty of having committed fraud in misleading investors into a biotechnology company he founded in 2016, and paid $29 million in damages.
Pharming, a portmanteau of "farming" and "pharmaceutical", refers to the use of genetic engineering to insert genes that code for useful pharmaceuticals into host animals or plants that would otherwise not express those genes, thus creating a genetically modified organism (GMO). Pharming is also known as molecular farming, molecular pharming or biopharming.
Tom Maniatis, is an American professor of molecular and cellular biology. He is a professor at Columbia University, and serves as the Scientific Director and CEO of the New York Genome Center.
Robert Samuel Langer Jr. FREng is an American biotechnologist, businessman, chemical engineer, chemist, and inventor. He is one of the twelve Institute Professors at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
A biopharmaceutical, also known as a biological medical product, or biologic, is any pharmaceutical drug product manufactured in, extracted from, or semisynthesized from biological sources. Different from totally synthesized pharmaceuticals, they include vaccines, whole blood, blood components, allergenics, somatic cells, gene therapies, tissues, recombinant therapeutic protein, and living medicines used in cell therapy. Biologics can be composed of sugars, proteins, nucleic acids, or complex combinations of these substances, or may be living cells or tissues. They are isolated from living sources—human, animal, plant, fungal, or microbial. They can be used in both human and animal medicine.
This page provides an alphabetical list of articles and other pages about biotechnology.
Swedish Orphan Biovitrum AB is an international biopharmaceutical company dedicated to treatments in the areas of haematology, immunology and specialty care, based in Stockholm, Sweden.
Harvey Franklin Lodish is a molecular and cell biologist, professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Founding Member of the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, and lead author of the textbook Molecular Cell Biology. Lodish's research focused on cell surface proteins and other important areas at the interface between molecular cell biology and medicine.
Richard C. Mulligan is an American scientist who is the Mallinckrodt Professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School, the Director of the Harvard Gene Therapy Initiative and a visiting scientist at the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is also the head of SanaX at Sana Biotechnology.
Sidney Pestka was an American biochemist and geneticist. A recipient of the National Medal of Technology, he is sometimes referred to as the "father of interferon" for his groundbreaking work developing the interferons as treatments for major diseases such as hepatitis, multiple sclerosis, and cancer. Pestka was part of the team working on research involving the genetic code, protein synthesis and ribosome function that led to the 1968 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine received by Marshall Warren Nirenberg.
Donald E. Ingber is an American cell biologist and bioengineer. He is the founding director of the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University, the Judah Folkman Professor of Vascular Biology at Harvard Medical School and Boston Children's Hospital, and Professor of Bioengineering at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. He is also a member of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering, the National Academy of Engineering, the National Academy of Medicine, the National Academy of Inventors, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
A biological patent is a patent on an invention in the field of biology that by law allows the patent holder to exclude others from making, using, selling, or importing the protected invention for a limited period of time. The scope and reach of biological patents vary among jurisdictions, and may include biological technology and products, genetically modified organisms and genetic material. The applicability of patents to substances and processes wholly or partially natural in origin is a subject of debate.
Roger Brent is an American biologist known for his work on gene regulation and systems biology. He studies the quantitative behaviors of cell signaling systems and the origins and consequences of variation in them. He is Full Member in the Division of Basic Sciences at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and an Affiliate Professor of Genome Sciences at the University of Washington.
Keiichi Itakura is an organic chemist and a Professor in the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology at the Beckman Research Institute at City of Hope National Medical Center.
Henri A. Termeer was a Dutch biotechnology executive and entrepreneur who is considered a pioneer in corporate strategy in the biotechnology industry for his tenure as CEO at Genzyme. Termeer created a business model adopted by many others in the biotech industry by garnering steep prices— mainly from insurers and government payers— for therapies for rare genetic disorders known as orphan diseases that mainly affect children. Genzyme uses biological processes to manufacture drugs that are not easily copied by generic-drug makers. The drugs are also protected by orphan drug acts in various countries which provides extensive protection from competition and ensures coverage by publicly funded insurers. As CEO of Genzyme from 1981 to 2011, he developed corporate strategies for growth including optimizing institutional embeddedness nurturing vast networks of influential groups and clusters: doctors, private equity, patient-groups, insurance, healthcare umbrella organizations, state and local government, and alumni. Termeer was "connected to 311 board members in 17 different organizations across 20 different industries" He has the legacy of being the "longest-serving CEO in the biotechnology industry.
ChoKyun Rha was a Korean-born American food technologist, inventor, and professor of biomaterials science and engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). She was the first Asian woman awarded tenure at MIT.