CAMBRIDGE, Mass. – June 27, 2011 – Selventa™, a personalized healthcare company focused on stratification of patients and development of predictive biomarker panels based on disease-driving mechanisms, today announced that Professors James J. Collins and Mathukumalli Vidyasagar will join the company as key advisors to provide feedback and direction to the scientific development of the Company.
Professor Collins is a Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) Investigator, William F. Warren Distinguished Professor and Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Boston University, and a Founding Core Faculty Member of the Wyss Institute at Harvard University. He is a pioneering researcher in synthetic and systems biology and its applications for bacterial systems to increase antibiotic efficacy and decrease antibiotic resistance. Professor Vidyasagar is the Cecil and Ida Green Chair in Systems Biology Science and Professor of Bioengeering at the University of Texas at Dallas. He is a recognized global expert in control theory who is focused on applying his engineering and mathematical expertise in bridging the gap between genetics and drug response, an area of great interest and alignment to Selventa.
“Leveraging the expertise of these two scientific thought leaders will be instrumental to Selventa’s mission of helping our partners realize the vision of personalized healthcare,” said David de Graaf, President and CEO of Selventa. “We are extremely excited to interact with them and look forward to future exchanges that will enhance the Company’s scientific excellence. Having recently licensed IP from Professor Collins’ laboratory to further strengthen our existing technologies for mechanistic analyses, we are better positioned to bring greater value to our pharmaceutical partners.”
Selventa leverages patient data and innovative analytics to understand disease heterogeneity, identify key disease driving mechanisms at the level of individual patients, and ultimately help pharmaceutical partners strategically find optimal treatments for the right patients. Ultimately, the value includes portfolio optimization through evidence-driven identification and validation of mechanisms for patient stratification and combination therapies, which maximize broad response or desired efficacy.
“Selventa has a unique reverse engineering technology to solve complex biological questions,” said Professor Jim Collins. “I am pleased to provide scientific insights and contribute in the evolution of this technology. Strategies to integrate different computational approaches for deciphering how biological systems operate will advance the ways we solve interesting biological problems.”
Selventa is committed to expanding its existing technologies in the application of personalized healthcare and looking towards thought leaders to receive expert scientific counsel. Input from academic luminaries and visionaries such as Professors Collins and Vidyasagar will undoubtedly augment the Company’s approach to helping partners find optimal therapies for the right patients.
“Effective approaches to turn large-scale raw gene expression data into comprehensive bioengineering or mathematical models could reduce the cost of drug development and separate responders from non-responders,” said Professor Mathukumalli Vidyasagar. “Harnessing current approaches like the one developed from Selventa, building sophisticated new algorithms, and extending tools would be critical in understanding variations across humans and their response to specific drugs.”
About Selventa
Founded in 2002 and privately-held, Selventa helps clients find optimal treatments for the right patients by offering scientific consulting services, software and strategic partnerships. The company analyzes molecular patient data, accelerates the development process and clarifies therapeutics and diagnostics decisions. Selventa engages in short-, mid- and long-term relationships with top-tier pharmaceutical and life science companies to develop new therapeutics and mechanistic biomarkers in the areas of oncology, metabolic disorders, cardiovascular diseases, inflammation and drug safety. For more information, visit www.selventa.com.
For more information, please contact:
Diane H. Song, Ph.D., 617-547-5421 x235
dsong@selventa.com
Paul Kidwell, 617-296-3854
paulkidwell@comcast.net
