Cerner targets genomics
as area of growth
Kansas
City Business Journal - October 20, 2006
by Rob Roberts
Staff
Writer
Cerner Corp.
became a $1 billion company by positioning itself at the nascent intersection
of two highly complex fields: health care and information technology.
Now, the North Kansas City-based health
care IT leader is bolstering its position on another challenging frontier:
genomic medicine.
On Oct. 9, Cerner announced a new
partnership allowing it to sell Phoenix-based Visual
Technologies LLC's genomics research software, Visual Data Explorer, to
clients in the clinical arena.
The software, the third offering in
Cerner's genomics portfolio, transforms the complex data sets produced by
genetic analysis into graphic content that is easier to visualize and
manipulate.
In the past, Visual Technologies CEO Brad
Edwards said, Visual Data Explorer has been targeted to academic and other
basic research centers, where the 1990s mapping of the human DNA sequence
accelerated research into the functions and characteristics of the 30,000 genes
contained in nearly every human cell.
More than 99 percent of human DNA
sequences are the same across the population. Mark Hoffman, Cerner's director
of genomics strategy, said the variations can have significant effects on how
patients respond to disease, viruses, drugs and other environmental factors.
That discovery led to the emergence of
"personalized medicine" -- the use of drug and other therapies
tailored to patients with particular genetic makeups -- and a new marketplace
for Cerner.
"They see the continuing overlap of
what's going on in the genomics research and pharmaceutical development labs
and what's going on in clinical treatment settings," Edwards said.
"I'm not aware of any other (health care IT vendors) who have made the kind of initiatives to bridge that gap that
Cerner has."
Hoffman, who joined Cerner as a software
developer in 1997, approached David McCallie, director of Cerner's medical
informatics group, three years later with his suggestion that Cerner enter the
medical genomics arena.
Two years later, Hoffman began work on
Cerner's first genomics offering, Millennium Helix, which allows genetic data
to be incorporated into patients' electronic medical records.
Since then, the software has been sold to
15 institutions, the most recent being the Virginia
Commonwealth University Medical Center.
That number pales in comparison with
Cerner's 1,500 worldwide clients. Hoffman, however, said he sees lots of upside
because of the benefits genetic analysis promises in areas ranging from
reduction of genetically related adverse drug reactions to molecular diagnosis
of infectious diseases.
"Using culturing methods, it used to
take six to eight weeks to determine whether or not someone had
tuberculosis," Hoffman said. "Using a molecular test for the
tuberculosis gene, a lab can now detect TB in less than a day."
Another easy-to-grasp example involves
the fact that a genetic mutation present in 7 percent of the population renders
those with the mutation unable to benefit from codeine, Hoffman said.
Unfortunately, he said, genetic testing,
which begins with a blood draw or cheek swab, is not being ordered in many
clinical settings.
"But I think every physician in the
next five to 10 years is going to be challenged by patients who want their
genetic information to be utilized as one part of making medical
decisions," Hoffman said.
That will mean increased demand for
software that embeds alerts for genetic testing into routine physician order
entries, thus eliminating the need for doctors to review mountains of
literature to keep up with genomic medical advances, Hoffman said.
The increased capture of genetic data
during the delivery of patient care also will create demand for programs like
Visual Data Explorer from in-hospital and contract laboratories that serve
clinical clients, he said.
Dr. Gary Pettett, past president of the Metropolitan
Medical Society of Greater Kansas City, said genomic medicine "is
certainly on the frontier."
But he said he thinks its widespread use
will be slowed by pharmaceutical companies, "who are not going to tailor
medications to specific genomic features of the population unless there's
enough demand to make it worth their while."
For every big pharma player that is slow
to relinquish the one-size-fits-all blockbuster approach, however, there may be
a biotech company eager to embrace personalized medicine, also known as
pharmacogenomics.
San Francisco-based Genentech, considered
the founder of the biotechnology industry, received Food
and Drug Administration approval in 1998 for Herceptin, a breast cancer
drug proven effective in women whose tumors contain high levels of a protein
produced by the HER2 gene.
Although those women represent only 25
percent of breast cancer patients,
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