“Not many companies want to do what we do,” says Adel Mikhail, CEO of
Phylogeny, Inc., in Columbus.
What Phylogeny does, according to Mikhail, is “help accelerate the discovery of new therapeutics and diagnostics for human health by enabling scientists to achieve excellence in functional genomic research.”
Phylogeny provides a range of expertise to help scientists at companies and institutes understand key biological processes about how genes function, he explains.
“Our clients in the corporate sector include most biotech companies and all the top-tier pharmaceutical companies,” he notes.
Scientists can outsource certain aspects of discovery research and development to Phylogeny instead of performing the studies in house themselves.
“Our experts perform the complicated research studies that are important for biological discovery,” he says. ”The type of research we provide requires a tremendous amount of experience and expertise and is difficult and costly to perform.”
Phylogeny was established in 2002 by Adel Mikhail and Craig Mello. Mello shared the 2006 Nobel Prize in physiology for the discovery of RNAi, a long chain of nucleotide units that can turn genes off.
“By using RNAi, we explore the function of genes,” Mikhail explains. “RNAi can be used therapeutically to regulate genes involved in a disease process. It’s just one of the ways to study the biology of specific genes.”
Phylogeny’s scientists have been instrumental in bringing important drugs in the areas of cancer, obesity and osteoporosis to clinical trial.
According to Mikhail, their top three scientists have collectively authored more than 800 publications and can provide very quick insight to their clients.
The company has 21 employees, numerous contractors and part-time staff and received funding from
Ohio’s Third Frontier initiative in both 2004 and 2010.
Source: Adel Mikhail, Phylogeny, Inc.
Writer: Lynne Meyer