They range from companies that use DNA testing to create biomarkers for their own diagnostic or prognostic tests, to pharmaceutical firms who need to analyze DNA samples to make sure their drugs are going to work on a certain population of patients, to hospitals and insurance companies.
“There’s a long list of potential opportunities in front of us,” says Mr. Curry. “There are some customers that would have a hard time getting their business off the ground without us, because we’ve created a scalable way of collecting DNA samples.”
The company makes kits that take in saliva samples, rather than blood. That allows patients to easily collect their own DNA at home and mail it in for testing, instead of having to trek out to a lab.
New applications are being explored every day at the company’s labs: The growing pharmacogenomic space, for example, needs DNA testing to ensure patients are getting the appropriate dosing for maximum benefits, or that they can use a particular drug at all.
“And today in Canada and the U.S., DNA isn’t being actively used to determine dosing,” Mr. Curry says.
He points to the blood-thinning drug coumadin, which is prescribed to one million new patients a year, with some 18 per cent of that figure reporting adverse drug reactions because of inappropriate dosing. “So you can see the opportunity to use DNA to save health, as well as costs.”
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DNA Genotek is also working on products to collect DNA samples from cattle and other animals, as well as on new applications for RNA collection, which could help further work on infectious diseases such as influenza.
Those diversified thrusts have enabled the company’s recent rapid global growth, Mr. Curry says. As well, it’s been able to capitalize on the funds pumped into health research in the United States.
“It’s been a lot of hard work for us to get customers on a worldwide basis to convert traditional DNA sample collection with blood to our saliva-based kits,” he adds.
But with virtually no competitors in the saliva DNA collection field, the company’s success stories are impressive ones, such as its deal with the U.S. health insurance company Kaiser Permanente.
“They were talking about studying 100,000 patients in California, with each one of those patients using our product and getting their samples sent in record time through the mail,” he says. “They bought a very substantial amount of our product … and they were able to serve their insurance customers better.”
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Year founded: 1998
Number of employees: 60
Product/service: DNA sample collection kits
Revenue growth: 153%
