Genomics Industry

The challenge of the postgenomics era has been to identify those genes that are of clinical value for drug development. Inherent to that is a basic understanding of the function of all genes. Using industrialized biology approaches, these companies develop technologies for their own use or for sale to other companies. These new technologies are designed to pinpoint specific genes associated with disease and to determine causal relationships with pathology. Companies specializing in this area include Affymetrix, Excelesis, and Lexicon. In addition, most major pharmaceutical companies have established functional genomics departments.