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Thursday, July 14, 2005
Accelerator announces blood diagnostic venture
Homestead aims for early detection of diseases to save lives
Accelerator Corp. yesterday announced the formation of Homestead Clinical Corp., a blood diagnostic company that its founders hope will save lives by detecting diseases and cancers at an early stage.
The new venture is a spinoff from Leroy Hood's Seattle-based Institute for Systems Biology, which analyzes diseases such as cancer, diabetes and AIDS.
Hood, a leading human genome expert, is an advocate of humans having their DNA mapped so that doctors can predict and prevent illnesses before they become life-threatening.
"Homestead is one of the first commercial steps that we've taken in predictive medicine," said Hood, institute president and an Accelerator board member.
To analyze blood, Homestead will use logarithms and institute-developed diagnostic technology, which started about three years ago. Seattle-based Accelerator has been working on funding and starting the company since at least January.
Incorporated last month, Homestead is the fourth biotechnology company to come out of the South Lake Union investment incubator. It will be based at Accelerator's office and laboratory space on Eastlake Avenue East.
Carl Weissman, Accelerator president and chief executive, said new companies from the incubator typically receive about $2.5 million in funding, but Homestead received a higher amount. Both Weissman and Hood declined to say how much.
Homestead's only employee is Patricia Beckmann, who is the chief scientific officer. Hood said the former Immunex Corp. and Amgen manager, has the research and venture capital experience necessary to lead a startup biotechnology business.
Beckmann was on the team that developed Enbrel, Amgen's treatment for inflammation. More employees are expected to be hired in the coming months.
In the near term, Hood hopes the company can work with larger commercial laboratories, such as North Carolina-based LabCorp. That company has employees in Seattle.
As technologies improve, he hopes Homestead can move into personal blood diagnostic work.
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