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Advaita Corporation |
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December 15, 2014 Issue |
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The Most Powerful Name In Corporate News and Information |
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Biological Data Tools and Software for Collection and Interpretation |
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Advaita Corporation
Interview conducted by: Lynn Fosse, Senior Editor, CEOCFO Magazine, Published – December 15, 2014
CEOCFO:
Mr. Draghici, what is concept for Advaita?
CEOCFO: Are people doing that today and if so, what are you doing differently? Mr. Draghici: The tools that are currently available are essentially databases that put together huge collections of data, which consist of pieces of information about genes and the various other elements of a living system. What we are doing different is that we use a systems biology approach that takes into consideration all of the dependencies between various genes that are necessary for the intricate equilibrium that is constantly maintained in a living being. Then we do a sophisticated analysis that is able to calculate the degree to which various subsystems are impacted in a given disease or condition.
CEOCFO: Who would be using your services? Mr. Draghici: This would be useful to life scientists, both in the academic, as well as in the biotech and/or big pharma environments.
CEOCFO: Is your product currently available or in development. Where are you in the process? Mr. Draghici: We have two products that are currently available. One of them is called PathwayGuide, which is a standalone piece of software that is installed on one’s machine. The other one is called iPathwayGuide, which is a web based application that requires no local installation. You would go to our website and analyze your data there. This is also available in the BaseSpace environment that was put together by one of our partners, Illumina Corporation, which is the biggest manufacturer of sequencing equipment.
CEOCFO: Do many people want stand-alone today or do they prefer the web? Mr. Draghici: That is a good question. There are advantages and disadvantages to both approaches. The stand alone gives you the absolute confidence that your data never leaves your site and in some situations that may be preferred. However, the disadvantage is that you need to install the software and you need to take into consideration the local environment, the operating system, the versions, and so on. Therefore, there could be all sorts of installation complications. The web based version is much easier to deploy because it is just about working a browser, so people do not need to install anything on their machines. Once you test it with various browsers and operating systems, you should be good to go for worldwide deployment. The information does travel over the internet, but this can be done in a very secure manner, because everything is encrypted. The web deployment is more accepted today than it was a few years ago by big pharma. Pretty much everyone likes the web deployment.
CEOCFO: Would you give us an example of how your tool is used and what topics might someone seek information? Mr. Draghici: Imaging that you wake up one morning and your car does not start. You do not know exactly how the car works, but you happen to have a neighbor that has the same exact car. Today, there is a device that you can connect to the car and read all of the data from the computer of the car, coming from the onboard sensors. You would do this to your car and to your neighbor’s car and come up with two lists of thousands of numbers that tell you everything about each car, so that you can compare and figure out why your car would not start. This is also what people do with diseases. Researchers take samples from healthy people and samples from a certain tumor and they have a technology that allows them to measure the expression levels of all genes. Essentially, the input in both cases is all the same. It is a long list of numbers and you know that some numbers come from the healthy state and some come from the disease. Going back to the car, you would have a manual with 500 pages of diagrams, with each diagram describing how a particular subsystem works. The idea is to have a piece of software that takes those lists of numbers from the cars, compares them, and identifies the subsystem of the car that is preventing the car from starting. Essentially, in the life science world what we do is provide the ability to identify and understand the subsystem of a living organism that is affected in a particular condition, such as cancer. This allows people to develop a strategy for a therapeutic intervention. It could be a drug, a combination or drugs, or provide the drug target so that someone can design a drug for that particular condition. Studies can compare healthy vs. diseased, treated vs. untreated, drug A vs. drug B, etc. In all situations, our analysis can identify the subsystems that are impacted and the mechanisms at play.
CEOCFO: Are users confident in the results? Mr. Draghici: We do many thousands of simulations for every data set. For every real data that is submitted, part of the analysis is that we do thousands of simulations in the background in which we substitute the real values with random values. Therefore, the significance of what is observed is in fact calculated with respect to what you would observe with random values. The analysis points out exactly those parts of the system that are very different from what you get by chance. Every result, every subsystem comes with a certain probability that makes a researcher trust us. Those values that come with every result that we produce give a very accurate estimation of the trust that one can put in every particular result that comes out of the analysis.
CEOCFO: How are you reaching out to prospective customers? Mr. Draghici: We have a number of partnerships with important players in the field. One of our partners is JMP Genomics from SAS, which is the brand name in sources of statistical analysis applications. We have partnered with Illumina, which is the brand name and the 800 pound gorilla in the field of equipment that does next generation sequencing. Illumina has their own version of the App Store, where people can develop applications, and their machines have the capability to automatically upload the data there. That AppStore is called BaseSpace® (Genomic Cloud Computing). We are providing an application - which is the only application that does this kind of analysis - for all of their users. And they have many hundreds of thousands of machines deployed all over the world. Therefore, all of their users can access our software. We have recently partnered with AB Sciex, which is the market leader in the proteomics area. They make the machines that do proteomics analysis. They have a brand new technology called SWATH 2.0 which they are dubbing next generation proteomics. We recently participated at the Human Proteomics (HUPO) Congress in Madrid and we were demonstrating our software in their booth. We also have some local partnerships as well. Another channel where people can find us is through our website, where anyone can go and log into our application. The iPathwayGuide is currently free, so they can upload their data and do the analysis. We also reach customers by participating in big events. For instance, we had a booth at the annual meeting of the American Society for Human Genetics (ASHG) in San Diego. We have also been to the annual meeting of the European Society for Human Genetics (ESHG) meeting last spring and we will also attend the annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research. Therefore, our channels include: partners, direct marketing efforts, and participation in trade shows.
CEOCFO: Put it all together for our readers. Why pay attention to Advaita today? Mr. Draghici: Researchers have developed over the past twenty years this wonderful lab assays that allow them to really measure everything at an incredible level of detail and accuracy. Now these machines generate terabytes of data on a daily basis. It is relatively simple and relatively inexpensive to take a sample from a patient or from a tumor, sequence that, and measure the expression level of all genes. Therefore, the challenge has shifted from collecting such data to interpreting it. 40 years ago the challenge was how do I measure a single gene and people spent five or six years trying to learn something about one gene. Now, we have these machines that in one shot, in a few hours or a day at most, can measure all of the genes in the human body. Therefore, the challenge has completely shifted from “how do you collect this data?” to “what does this mean?”. Currently, we are the market leader in providing the tools that allow you to address these questions, to transform that huge amount of data that everyone can gather quite easily right now, into a better understanding of the underlying biological phenomenon. |
“Therefore, the challenge has completely shifted from ‘how do you collect this data?’ to ‘what does this mean?’. Currently, we are the market leader in providing the tools that allow you to address these questions, to transform that huge amount of data that everyone can gather quite easily right now, into a better understanding of the underlying biological phenomenon.” - Sorin Draghici
Advaita Corporation
Sorin Draghici 734-922-0110
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Sorin
Draghici