William Wells: List of Biotech articles


Below is a full list of links to my articles about biotech companies. The articles were originally published in Chemistry & Biology and the now defunct HMS Beagle.


  • Getting gene therapy under control: ARIAD Pharmaceuticals, Inc. - ARIAD is ready to control gene therapy, but is gene therapy ready for ARIAD?

  • Smarter viruses: Onyx Pharmaceuticals, Inc. - Could a cancer-specific virus be too good to be true?

  • Industrial-strength profiling: Rosetta Inpharmatics - Deciphering a mountain of genomics data by generating more of it.

  • Life after worms: Lynx Therapeutics, Inc. - Sydney Brenner takes on the challenge of genomics.

  • Eek, a XenoMouse: Abgenix, Inc. - say hello to the (almost) six billion dollar mouse - a beast that can produce human antibodies on command.

  • Sniffing for success: Senomyx, Inc. - the precision of modern biological research comes to the rescue of the industry of smell.

  • Send in the gas: NicOx S.A. - bizarre, fortuitous science and a toxic gas form the basis of a company with more collaborations than employees.

  • Cancer vaccines made to order: Antigenics L.L.C. - personalized therapy to help the immune system battle cancer.

  • Packing it in: Chromos Molecular Systems Inc. and Athersys, Inc. - artificial minichromosomes could be the perfect vehicle for introducing germline gene therapy.

  • Virtual cures: Entelos, Inc. - curing real diseases by creating virtual diseases.

  • Getting rid of radicals: MetaPhore Pharmaceuticals, Inc. - small molecules designed to have enzymatic activity can destroy disease-causing radicals.

  • Rebuilding the spine: Acorda Therapeutics, Inc. - new hope for repairing spinal cord injuries.

  • Bug warfare: IntraBiotics Pharmaceuticals, Inc. - fighting the threat of superbugs with borrowed technology and an ancient defense system.

  • Bind every sequence: Sangamo Biosciences, Inc. - building mix-and-match DNA-binding proteins to turn any gene on or off.

  • In search of the proteome: Oxford GlycoSciences plc - how to run 100,000 2-D gels per year, and other stories from the brave new world of proteomics.

  • Cell biology goes commercial: Cytokinetics, Inc. - studying the cytoskeleton in the search for another Taxol.

  • Trust me, it will work: Small Molecule Therapeutics, Inc. - founding a company based on reputation, and not much else.

  • Chiral genetics: Chiroscience Group, plc - the science of chiral drugs and chiral switches, and a company with an identity crisis.

  • Delicious vaccines: Axis Genetics, plc - edible vaccines look promising, but their distribution to the developing world will still be complex.

  • Going in for the kill: Idun Pharmaceuticals, Inc. - manipulating cell death to treat stroke, heart attack, neurodegeneration, and cancer.

  • Amgen redux: ICOS Corporation - the new venture of Bill Gates and George Rathmann (the founder of drug giant Amgen).

  • A beginning, of sorts, for antisense: Isis Pharmaceuticals, Inc. - antisense technology is entering the market, but problems remain.

  • Chemistry on a pinhead: Illumina, Inc. - using fiber optics and artificial noses to make sensors and find new pharmaceuticals.

  • Could mitochondria be the key? - MitoKor - a controversial theory drives a company's interest in diseases of the aging.

  • The snail companies: Neurex Corporation & Cognetix Inc. - fish-killing snails are a surprising source of new drugs.

  • Coming full circle: Vertex Pharmaceuticals Incorporated - after a very public initial failure, Vertex is returning to "The Billion Dollar Molecule".

  • A complete vision: Imaging Research, Inc. - why image one assay well at a time, when you can look at the whole plate at once?

  • Total recall: Helicon Therapeutics, Inc. - what will memory drugs do, and do we really want them?

  • High-throughput worms: NemaPharm, Inc. - using the worm as an assay system.

  • The next chip-based revolution: Caliper Technologies Corp. - microfluidics may revolutionize how everyday science is carried out.

  • Starving cancer into submission: EntreMed, Inc. - drugs that starve tumors to death provide a promising new approach.

  • Rainforest remedies: Shaman Pharmaceuticals - rather than rely on chemistry for drug ideas, Shaman asks native people about what has been prescribed for centuries.

  • Lead compound phone home: IRORI - a fancy radiofrequency tag to keep track of combinatorial libraries of chemicals.

  • Digging in the dirt: TerraGen Diversity Inc. and ChromaXome Corp. - the potent natural products (and potential drugs) made by soil bacteria can be accessed by directly isolating DNA from dirt.

  • Phage on display: Dyax Corp. - molecular diversity can be arrayed and tested by displaying it on the surface of living organisms.

  • Of mice and men: Geron Corporation - telomeres change in cancer cells and as we age. If we delay the changes, will we delay cancer or aging?

  • Cancer gets the red light: Pharmacyclics, Inc. - light-activated anti-cancer drugs.

  • What the hedgehog knows: Ontogeny, Inc. - if genes used in development can be reawakened, they might help repair the body.

  • Subverting the cell cycle: Mitotix, Inc. - attacking the basic machinery of cell division in search of a more specific cancer cure.

  • Shine a light: Aurora Biosciences Corporation - miniaturization, automation, and fluorescence are the keys in Aurora's system for screening millions of potential drugs.

  • Mapping out fat profits: Millennium Pharmaceuticals, Inc. - there is more than one way to tackle obesity.

  • Seeking extremophiles: Recombinant Biocatalysis, Inc. (now known as Diversa) - bugs from the ocean deep may yield the next ingredient in your laundry detergent.

  • Virtual toxicology: Xenometrix, Inc. - how to test for toxicity without using animals.

  • Piecing together drugs: Abbott Laboratories - an NMR machine allows the rational design of a drug from smaller pieces.

  • One-step genome analysis: Synteni, Inc. - with DNA chips, thousands of genes can be analyzed at once.

  • Combinatorial chemistry makes good: Affymax - the early leaders in a brave new world of chemistry.



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