Gene Network Sciences Announces Creation of Spin-off Entity Focused on Quantitative Finance and E-Commerce
- GNS Becomes First Biotechnology Company to Leverage Platform Technology for E-Commerce & Quant Finance Purposes -
CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Nov. 25 /PRNewswire/ -- Gene Network Sciences, Inc.
(GNS) today announced that it has created a subsidiary company, Fina
Technologies, Inc. (Fina) to leverage its proprietary Reverse Engineering,
Forward Simulation (REFS(TM)) software platform in a new arena -- that of
quantitative financial trading and e-commerce. REFS(TM) was originally
developed to rapidly process raw clinical and genomics data to identify drug
targets, biomarkers and drug and disease mechanisms for disease categories
such as cancer, diabetes and inflammation, and has been used by GNS in
partnership with leading pharmaceutical companies and clinical research
organizations such as Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer, Novartis AG, Biogen Idec,
UCSF Cancer Center, and Jackson Laboratories for these purposes.
"Hidden complex networks govern everything from human diseases to
financial markets and the internet, making reliable predictions impossible,"
said Colin Hill, President and CEO of GNS and Chairman of the Board of Fina:
"It is only today that terabytes of data, on-demand supercomputing, and
next-generation artificial intelligence software have converged to enable the
uncovering of such networks, and prediction of their behavior, such as
predicting how a combination of two cancer drugs would affect the size of a
tumor in a cancer patient with a particular DNA sequence."
GNS, who developed their proprietary REFS(TM) technology over the past
eight years, uses supercomputers to rapidly accelerate the processing of raw
data into meaningful biomedical outcomes. To date, this REFS(TM) software has
been used to probe and analyze how genes and proteins interconnect in a
complex web with the goal of developing better drugs. Today, GNS has launched
Fina Technologies (http://www.finatechnologies.com) to monetize their REFS(TM)
technology in the e-commerce and financial trading markets, while remaining
focused on their original drug development mission.
Fina Technologies has obtained from GNS an exclusive license to certain
non-biological applications of REFS(TM), such as quantitative finance,
e-commerce, insurance, and fraud detection. "Fina will use REFS(TM) to create
quantitative trading algorithms and deliver business solutions for a new class
of data intensive problems," said Josh Holden, CEO of Fina. "After spending
13 years trading on Wall Street, this is the first tool I've seen that
automates the discovery of complex and evolving relationships from massive
amounts of data, leading to more reliable and more profitable trading
strategies."
Fina Technologies is supported in their efforts through an initial round
of investment led by Reed Elsevier Ventures, the venture arm of the
multibillion dollar Anglo-Dutch media conglomerate Reed Elsevier, owner of
such assets as Lexis-Nexis, and by a Board of Directors steeped in finance and
e-commerce. In addition to Colin Hill, Co-founder and President and CEO of
GNS, the Board of Fina includes Bill Trenchard, founder of Jump Networks, a
start-up company that developed the world's first online calendaring system,
which was sold to Microsoft for $50 million in 1999, and who is a current
Board member of LiveOps, another company he founded. Also on the Board of
Fina are Kevin Brown, Partner at Reed Elsevier Ventures; and Robert Maroney,
Investment Manager at Connecticut Investments, LLC.
About REFS(TM)
Reverse Engineering/Forward Simulation (REFS(TM)) is a technology that
systematically turns multiple layers of data into an unprecedented view of
complex systems as a "whole," without requiring previous knowledge of the
structure of the system. REFS(TM) begins with raw data and rapidly performs
billions upon billions of calculations using supercomputers to determine how
the individual components in the system interact with one another (Reverse
Engineering). These computer-assembled models are then simulated using
billions of in silico queries (Forward Simulation) to discover the
highest-impact components and to predict outcomes for previously unseen
scenarios.
About Gene Network Sciences
Founded in 2000, Gene Network Sciences (http://www.gnsbiotech.com) is a
leader in biosimulation with its ability to derive molecular mechanisms of
drugs and diseases directly from molecular profiling and clinical data without
any a priori knowledge. Headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts, GNS uses
its REFS(TM) (reverse engineering and forward simulation) technology in
pharmaceutical and clinical settings to rapidly turn complex and heterogeneous
data sets into cell and organ-level computer models of disease biology, drug
efficacy and drug safety. These models simulate mechanisms of disease and the
clinical performance of drug candidates. By discovering how and why specific
drug candidates impact human biology, GNS technology enables the rapid
development of breakthrough drug and diagnostic products.
