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RNAi Realities
When Andrew Fire and Stephen Mello received the 2006 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their discovery of RNA interference (RNAi) gene silencing by double-stranded RNA it was just a short eight years after the initial findings that made them famous. Compare that to the 20-plus years from the discovery of helicobacter pylori to the 2005 Nobel for its pioneers, Barry Marshall and J. Robin Warren, or the 30 years between Paul Lauterbur and Sir Peter Mansfield's seminal MRI work and their 2003 Nobel, and you get an idea of just how quickly RNAi has revolutionized biology.
Better yet, take a look at the market. At the end of October, pharma giant Merck announced the acquisition of Sirna Therapeutics, one of the leaders in RNAi technology, while Applied Biosystems gobbled up the research division of RNA product developer Ambion at the end of 2005. According to UK biotech analysts Lead Discovery, the RNAi market reached global sales of just over $1 billion in 2004, and is projected to reach $2.5 billion by 2010.
Not bad for a field that has yet to produce a marketable drug. (Sirna Therapeutics' Sirna-027, for acute macular degeneration, now in Phase II trials, is the furthest along in the pipeline.)
Due to the graphics in this article a PDF has been made available for you to download.
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