When a serious illness strikes, people often ask why there is no effective drug to treat it. What they don't know, says Cornell University Professor Bruce Ganem, is that while important new biotechnology drugs, particularly in the field of genomics, are emerging every day, investors often lack the tools to evaluate them as startup business ventures. What is needed to avoid failed efforts and lost cures is "an understanding of how the technology becomes commercialized," says Ganem, who is the J. Thomas Clark Professor in Cornell's Entrepreneurship and Personal Enterprise program as well as the Franz and Elisabeth Roessler Professor in Chemistry and Chemical Biology.

A demand for more biotechnology courses among MBA students at Cornell's Johnson Graduate School of Management led to Ganem's involvement in teaching courses at the interface of science and business. He is also adviser to the Johnson School's Health and Biotechnology Club and actively involved with the group's efforts to organize its upcoming symposium on the business of genomics. "The Genomic Revolution – Changing the Face of the Healthcare Industry" will take place at Cornell's Johnson School Friday, Feb. 28, from 9 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. in B09 Sage Hall. The event, which is free and open to the public, features discussions by top executives from Merck, Exelixis and Cigna as well the heads of two successful Ithaca biotechnology startups, GNS (Gene Network Sciences) and Advion BioSciences.

"The symposium brings together thought leaders from both the science and business side and is the most ambitious biotechnology club event I've ever seen," says Ganem.

The explosion of information on the human genome, following its sequencing, has led to "new opportunities to develop drugs that treat debilitating diseases such as cancer, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, rheumatoid arthritis and heart disease," says Arun Nataraj, an officer of the Health and Biotechnology Club and chair of the event. The idea of the symposium, he says, is to create a learning forum on the current state of the genomics industry, build greater biotechnology business expertise within the Cornell and Johnson School community, expose students to new career paths and create a venue to showcase locally based biotechnology initiatives. "We hope to cover many topics that are being hotly debated within the industry," he says, "such as building sustainable businesses in the tough biotech arena, venture funding for biotech startups and deal making in the pharmaceutical industry.

Ganem also hopes the symposium will stimulate discussion on the central question asked in his course The Business of Biotechnology: "How can the financial community develop a workable protocol for analyzing and valuing biotech companies?"

Keynote speakers are Edward M. Scolnick, M.D., former president of Merck Research Laboratories and Frank H.T. Rhodes Class of '56 University Professor at Cornell; and George Scangos, president and CEO of Exelixis Pharmaceuticals, a rising California-based company that develops drugs based on genomic technology.

Taking part in a 10:45 a.m. panel discussion moderated by Ganem will be the leaders of two Ithaca-based biotech firms, Colin Hill, co-founder and CEO of GNS, and Tom Kurz, chief operating officer of Advion BioSciences; as well as Charles Larsen, director of benefits at Cigna.

GNS is currently creating data-driven computer simulations of human cancer cells and bacterial cells and testing out how certain drugs work on specific gene and protein drug targets in their "virtual" cell environment. Hill, a doctoral candidate in physics at Cornell, helped launch the cancer-research firm in 2000 with $125,000 from BR Ventures, a venture capital fund run by Johnson School students, and $1.6 million from other private investors. Advion BioSciences, Ithaca's fastest growing company, is a developer of automated, chip-based mass spectrometry tools that help produce faster medical breakthroughs. The "lab-on-a-chip" firm was started by Cornell faculty member Jack Henion. Cigna is ones of the world's largest international health-care, group-life and disability insurers.