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INNOVATIONS 2003
Qiagen LIFE SCIENCES
Know your
CUSTOMERS
Customer knowledge is all-important for innovative results,
Qiagen CEO Dr Metin Colpan tells Paul Bray.
S
QIAGEN l INNOVATION AT A GLANCE
ome scientists never leave the lab.
Not the ones at Qiagen (NASDAQ:
QGENF), though. The Dutch
biotech company’s 260 research
scientists often go on the road with sales
and marketing reps, learning about
customers’ requirements first hand.
“It’s important to understand the
customer’s workflow,” says Qiagen’s
CEO, Dr Metin Colpan. “Sometimes, we
have to anticipate needs, creating a
market as well as a product.”
Qiagen provides technologies and
products for separating, purifying and
handling nucleic acids (DNA and RNA).
Its products, used by academic and
commercial scientists working in the
fields of life sciences, genomics and drug
discovery, totalled sales worth $263.8
million in the year to 31 December 2001.
PAXgene, which stabilises RNA in
biological samples such as blood, is an
example of a product that resulted from
listening to customers. The DNA and
RNA (genetic material) in the sample are
unstable and can degrade unless deepfrozen quickly. The problem, highlighted
to Qiagen in 1993 by an AIDS research
scientist, was solved some years later by
Qiagen researchers, who discovered a
molecule that stabilised organic samples.
Launched in 2000, Paxgene “could be
one of our most important products in
five to ten years” because of the growth
in molecular testing, says Colpan.
Much of Qiagen’s innovation is
prompted by developments in academic
science. For example, now the human
genome has been sequenced, scientists
want to know what each gene does, a
process called gene expression profiling.
Qiagen is developing products that will
enable researchers to test for genetic
similarities and differences between,
say, healthy and diseased cells, to help
pinpoint targets for drug development.
As the volumes of such tests increase,
automation will be necessary, Qiagen
predicts. The company’s automated
products for its procedures now account
for around 12 percent of sales. Qiagen
expects this to increase, and so ploughed
$6.9 million into R&D in 2001, 19 percent
of net income of $36.5 million.
Not everything is developed in-house.
One of its most exciting technologies
The Biorobot 3000 in the process of purifying nucleic acid.
came from Xeragon, a U.S. company it
acquired in 2002 for $8 million. Xeragon
had a patent for making small, synthetic
RNA (siRNA) molecules, which
neutralise a gene and stop it working.
siRNA was discovered in 2001, and in
October 2002 Qiagen launched Cancer
siRNA Oligo Set, for 139 cancer-related
genes. Colpan predicts that the siRNA
market could ultimately be
worth up to $100 million, as
By blending chemistry, engineering and IT, Qiagen’s SensiChip has
“siRNA can reduce a study
program from three years to a
overcome the limitations of conventional testing methods.
few months”.
After using siRNA, scienBy getting out on the road and
Qiagen, along with
tists may need to extract DNA
visiting customers, Qiagen
bioanalytical company
or RNA for testing, using
discovered they needed a way of Zeptosens, developed a
Qiagen’s gene expression
detecting tiny traces of a
microdevice called SensiChip,
profiling. The company’s aim
substance in order to cut out
which uses sophisticated
is that more and more of the
testing errors. Conventional
surface chemistry to cut out
interconnected processes of
testing methods require
most of the ‘background
life sciences research will use
scientists to multiply samples in
noise’ from other molecules
Qiagen products. “It is importhe laboratory until they contain in the sample, making it
tant to devise an integrated
enough of the substance to be
1,000-10,000 times more
solution for customers,”
measurable, but this increases
sensitive than conventional
concludes Colpan. N
the likelihood of errors.
technologies. Each SensiChip
The SensiChip Microarray Reader
(left) enables analysis of limited
amounts of starting material, such
as cervical cancer biopsies (top).
looks for the presence of a
specific gene, and can measure
the signal from just 100 cells, a
sample one-tenth the thickness
of a human hair.
Paul Bray writes for U.K.-based
newspapers the Sunday Times and
The Daily Telegraph.
www.qiagen.com
NASDAQ JAN/FEB 2003 27