This story originally ran on July 8.
French biotech company Hybrigenics announced this week that it will be creating a fully-owned subsidiary named Hybrigenics Services to house its fee-for-service protein interaction analysis business.
Formation of the subsidiary will potentially provide the services business with greater access to funding with which it will look to expand its marketing and sales operations with a particular focus on the US market, Hybrigenics CEO Rémi Delansorne told ProteoMonitor.
"What we want to do is show the financial and commercial independence of [the protein interaction business]," he said. Previously, the service business was "in the same pool with the same standing" as the company's pharmaceutical R&D activities. Separating them will give the service business "greater independence as a separate profit center, especially in terms of access to working capital," the company said in a statement.
Hybrigenics' protein interaction business generated €3.27 million ($4.14 million) in revenues in 2009 – up 8 percent over 2008. Its pharmaceutical business generated €900,000 in revenues – up 50 percent over 2008. Delansorne said that the Hybrigenics Services subsidiary will look to further grow its sales through expansion in the US.
"We've seen in the last few years that the US market is very responsive to our services, and we plan to increase our marketing and sales efforts in the US," Delansorne said.
In 2009 North America accounted for 27 percent of the company's protein interaction service revenues, and this contribution grew by 40 percent over 2008. According to Delansorne, the company aims to further increase the North American portion of its service revenues to 33 percent — or roughly €1.1 million — in 2010.
Last year France accounted for 33 percent of the company's protein interaction services sales, with the rest of Europe accounting for another 33 percent and Asia accounting for roughly 7 percent.
In terms of its North American marketing push, Hybrigenics is "really targeting the leaders in terms of protein research that can afford our services. That means the bigger, granted laboratories at the big universities – Harvard, Stanford, and so on," he said.
Hybrigenics' fee-for-service protein interaction offering uses yeast two-hybrid systems to discover novel protein interactions in cells, validate protein interactions, and study the inhibition of interactions between proteins. According to Delansorne, the new subsidiary housing these services has the capacity to increase its current production by 50 percent.
"We have basically no limitations in terms of sequencing, in terms of PCR, in terms of bioinformatics. We have enough lab space to house several more technicians," he said.