Market Opportunity

Personalized Medicine

The promise of devising therapeutics based on genotype has been around since well before the human genome project was completed almost ten years ago. Scientists have worked for years to map which genes perform which tasks in the body and pharmaceutical companies have long recognized the possibility that drug compounds may have different effects given genetic variation.

The one-size fits all approach to drug development is no longer effective for pharmaceutical companies. They are now turning to pharmacogenomics to understand how drug compounds may act differently and with varying efficacy given patient genotype. The new drug area, called "Personalized Medicine", has the goal of helping physicians to prescribe the right treatment for the right patient at the right time. Medicine has always had this goal, however our ability to assess prodigious amounts of genetic information due to improved computing and analysis techniques has significantly increased our ability to make the promise a reality.

Companion Diagnostics

A subset of personalized medicine, a pharmacogenetic companion diagnostic test identifies a specific genetic variation that may lead to improved or worsened patient outcomes given the administration of a particular drug compound. Prior to prescribing a drug, physicians use such a diagnostic test to reveal whether or not a patient has a genotype with a propensity to benefit or not from its action in the body. Companion diagnostics can provide doctors with information they need to more accurately prescribe medicines, reducing risk and costs to the medical system as a whole.

Why Acute Medical Conditions?

Acute medical conditions represent an area of high unmet medical need as these conditions often present complicated medical situations where empirical medicine is not optimal due to the critical nature of the patient. Sirius is focused on developing companion diagnostics for therapeutics used in these situations to ensure physicians are provided with timely and clinically relevant data to support use of a drug treatment option for patients that is most suitable for their genetic makeup.

Sepsis and Activated Protein C

Sirius has embarked on a path to discover the genetic variations responsible for increased or decreased efficacy of activated protein C and to create a companion diagnostic. Because the condition of patients with sepsis can decline very rapidly, it is critically important to intervene early with appropriate therapeutics and supportive care.

What is Sepsis?

Sepsis affects more than 750,000 1 people in the United States every year. Mortality rate of sepsis is 25-30% 2 for severe sepsis and 40-70% 3 for septic shock. Sepsis is the cumulative result of the body's over-reactive immune system to infection. It often starts with an uncontained initial infection which then progresses to involve the complex interactions and overlap of three of the body's defense mechanisms: the immune system, inflammation and coagulation. The interplay of these pathways can lead to multiple organ failures and death. However, the mechanism of action of how this occurs is not completely understood as it is difficult to accurately predict the outcomes of patients who have similar severity of infection and comparable clinical signs and symptoms.

  1. Crit Care Med 2001;29:1303-9.
  2. N Engl J Med 2001;344:699-709.
  3. Am J Respir Crit Care Med 2003;168:165-72.