Revolutionizing Precision Medicine

An accomplished businessman, a strategic thinker and an excellent leader, Mike Klein has been responsible for raising over $50 million in private equity and venture capital financing over the years. He has drawn on a unique blend of vision, tactical thinking, communication and execution skills in the last 25 years of his career. Mike’s technical and financial backgrounds have helped him bolster businesses and meet their objectives while driving revenue growth. Excerpts from an interview with Mike Klein, CEO, Genomenon:

The Entrepreneurial Streak

A computer and electrical engineer by academic virtue, Mike Klein found his way to genomics after he joined the company Genomenon four years ago. “I knew I wanted to be an entrepreneur early in my 20’s when my brother and I both started going to inventor conferences. After spending 10 years developing products at two different Fortune 500 companies, I started my first software company – Steeplechase Software in 1993.” He reminisces how he became the undisputed leader in the market and sold the company to a large multi-national corporation in 2000. “Genomenon is the fourth software/IT company that I have either started or joined as the CEO” he states.

Growth of Genomenon

Mike notes that Genomenon was born to organize all the genomic discoveries found in millions of scientific reports and make that information accessible at the fingertips of doctors and researchers to quickly interpret DNA results. “Quite literally, for precision medicine to become a reality for every patient, genetic interpretation needed an entirely new platform to eliminate the roadblocks that doctors are facing” observes Mike. “For precision medicine to scale, DNA interpretation had to be sped up by a factor of 100X” notes Mike, adding that precision medicine is revolutionizing the way we think about health care and genomics is the key that powers precision medicine.

Synergizing IT and Pharma

“Today, an individual’s whole genome can be quickly and cost-effectively sequenced but making sense of the 3.2 billion nucleotides that DNA sequencing produces is a big data challenge” observes Mike. By making use of their cloud-based Mastermind platform to index and organize genomic data, the company can deliver insight into the drivers behind a patient’s cancer or genetic and rare diseases. Mike cites an example of Rady Children’s Institute, wherein usage of Mastermind has led to an accurate diagnosis, thus helping treat babies born with rare diseases.

Challenges Galore 

Mike notes that scientists and doctors are a skeptical audience by nature. They do not adopt new technologies because they are cool, but they adopt them because they solve real problems, save time and can increase diagnostic yield. “It simply takes time to prove that applying new technologies in new ways can yield significant advantages in diagnosing patients or discovering new drugs. As a genomic health IT company, it’s our responsibility to demonstrate that the advantages we bring to the table are real and unmatched by any other approach,” he adds.

A New Phase for Pharma Industry

Mike believes that the pharmaceutical market will come out of the pandemic better in two ways. “As scientists are spending more time working from home, focusing on data, the ability to understand massive amounts of data to advance scientific insights is getting exercised during the pandemic, and will be a key asset that pharma companies will rely on even more in the future” notes Mike. He also predicts that the current situation will force the industry to streamline the discovery and regulatory process to get new therapies to market faster than ever before.

Proudest Moment

Knowing that their solutions play a role in saving lives and treating cancer patients is a powerful motivator for all its employees, notes Mike. “Our proudest moments are when we hear from clinicians how they diagnosed a patient using our software that would have otherwise remained undiagnosed and untreated. Our technology makes it easy for clinicians to find the answers that can save patients’ lives,” signs off Mike.