"Your ability to develop at HGS is all built on your talent and abilities and your career path can go in any number of directions - if you are open to the possibilities."-- Anthony, Manager Manufacturing HGS Employee Since 2001

Human Genome Sciences is dedicated to serving patients with innovative medical treatments. "Our people are the key to our success." - HGS At the Human Genome Sciences company, there are countless opportunities to learn and grow by interacting with other highly talented people all of whom are working together to strive to Haseltine's vision of a better future for us all. The future of HGS is in the hands of those who are willing to dedicate themselves to improving our collective futures. Human Genome Sciences is a foundation where the future is in the employees' hands, and the success comes directly from their talent, ability and dedication to the mission - towards a brighter future for us all. The work they undertake is challenging and with their high standards and flawless work ethic, HGS is expanding like never before. People tend to work harder for the things they believe in and every employee at Human Genome Sciences sincerely and passionately believes in the cause of saving and improving lives. Starting out as Haseltine's vision of a better tomorrow, HGS is now a booming biotech company dedicated to not only improving the lives of people in the world, but the lives of their employees as well.

They fund programs to train each of them in leadership and communication and other important skills that we must all develop. HGS does this so that all of their employees are even more qualified for their position and so that by improving the people that work together they can in turn improve their quality of work. HGS works hard to save lives and they spare no cost in the war effort against terminal diseases. A perfect elixir of business and science and technology, it is a leading company that uses its wealth and status to project the message that things can be done. We no longer have to accept that a loved one is dying, things can be done to save their lives, to improve their lives, to improve all that is done. It is now a competitive biotechnology company, with many skilled professionals and an amazing management team who work hard together towards a common goal. This is not enough, however. As the days go by more and more people are needed to for this company and many others. The only way to find a cure is to look for it and the only way to find the cure faster is to have more and more capable people looking for it together. Human Genome Sciences is a company that "...[thanks] employees for making Human Genome Sciences the company it is today and [what it] will become tomorrow." In order for Haseltine's dream of a healthier future to be more than a dream, other people must have this dream too. Human Genome Sciences is a company where all of its employees have the same vision of tomorrow and it is a company where all of its employees are working together to make it more than a dream.

Dr. Haseltine: Human Genome Sciences was founded in 1992. Our mission is to develop new ways to treat and cure disease by bringing gene based drugs to patients. Our specific business is the discovery, development, manufacture and sale of new pharmaceutical products: gene based drugs to treat and cure previously untreatable diseases. Our business has developed in several distinct stages. The first stage of our business was to obtain systematic knowledge of human genes. For this purpose, we developed new and very rapid methods to discover human genes in their useful form. Using new, highly robotic methods that involve use of automated DNA sequencing machines, between 1993 and 1995 we isolated and characterized what we estimate to be the great majority of human genes. Beginning in 1996, we entered the second phase of corporate development, that is, the discovery of new genes to treat and cure disease. We set up highly robotic methods ' new methods that we created ' to understand the natural function and medical utility of a large set of newly discovered human genes. This involves a process of testing a newly discovered human gene and its protein product on human cells and human tissues.

These methods allow us to determine the natural role of the gene, its protein product, and what the medical uses might be. To capture the vast amounts of data that come from this new, robotic, functional genomics program, we have also built a sophisticated bio-informatics system to correlate the data and to allow us to view and interpret the data to understand what the medical uses of these new genes might be. This system has been extremely efficient and productive, and to date has resulted in producing a wealth of new knowledge about the natural function and medical use of new genes. From a competitive point of view, and from a commercial point of view, this gives us a strong advantage. Knowing the natural function and medical utility of newly discovered human genes allows us to invest in creating new gene based medicines. The information that we've obtained from these new experimental methods is incorporated into patents that describe the structure, the function, and medical use of these new genes. We select some of the genes, those which meet medical needs for which there is not, at present, a good way to treat or to cure a serious disease and which meet medical needs for which we think we will have the ability to develop drugs and eventually sell them. We are developing drugs to treat cancer, heart disease, and diseases of auto-immunity, including diseases such as lupus, rheumatoid arthritis and multiple sclerosis.

The third phase of our work, which began about two years ago, is testing these new drugs in human clinical trials. Such tests require that we have our own manufacturing facility for production of drugs for human use; we now have such a facility. We have also hired a staff who are experts in the design and implementation of clinical studies, particularly in regulatory and medical affairs. Eventually, we plan to build expertise in sales and marketing. At this point, HGS has developed the infrastructure to discover, develop, manufacture and conduct clinical trials of our new drugs. As of now, we have two drugs in clinical trials. One is repifermin, for the treatment of large, persistent, unhealing wounds to the skin. Repifermin is also being tested for the treatment of a disease called mucositis, large wounds to the mouth and intestine caused by high-dosed chemotherapy. Very shortly, we hope to begin trials of repifermin for the treatment of ulcerative colitis as well. Ulcerative colitis is a serious, debilitating, chronic disease of the colon. The second drug undergoing clinical trials, MPIF, protects the blood forming tissues from the effects of cancer chemotherapy. We are testing it in Phase II clinical trials to protect the blood systems of women undergoing treatment for breast cancer. We are also testing it in a second trial for the protection of the blood forming tissues of people undergoing chemotherapy for ovarian cancer, small cell lung cancer and sarcomas. Shortly, we hope to begin a trial of a third drug to stimulate the immune system.

This drug is called BLyS, B Lymphocyte Stimulator. This drug has the potential to increase the production of naturally occurring antibodies. We believe it will have a number of important medical uses, including treatment of patients with a variety of types of acquired immune deficiencies, either as a result of medical treatments or as a result of infection with viruses such as AIDS; to treat people whose immune systems are weakened by age; or to treat people who have weakened immune systems as a consequence of heredity. This drug is currently being manufactured, and we're awaiting word from the FDA to begin our clinical trials. That describes one source of our drugs that we plan to develop and sell. We have, however, a second external source. Over time, we have placed our technology in the hands of a number of large pharmaceutical companies, as well as in the hands of some biotechnology companies. Let me describe one such arrangement. The original relationship was made with SmithKline Beecham, soon to be Glaxo- SmithKline ' the largest pharmaceutical company in the world. If they use information about human genes they obtain from us to discover a drug that they bring to market ' that is they make the entire investment in research, development and market launch ' HGS benefits in two ways. We will receive 10% of royalties on sales over $100 million, and we have the right to help sell the same drug alongside Glaxo-SmithKline in North America and Europe ' a potentially very rich source of an external pipeline. More recently, we've been very active in forming alliances with an elite group of biotech companies. These companies, like HGS, have a stated goal and capacity to bring drugs to market. These are companies that have invested in clinical and regulatory groups as well as manufacturing capacity. We pick companies that have technologies which are complementary to ours. Let me illustrate with two examples.

One of our deals was with a company called Transgene in France. They have the right to develop 10 genes from our collection for gene therapy purposes. If the drug proves to be effective in European trials, HGS can develop and sell the drug in North America. That gives us access to sell drugs that other companies have invested in the early research, as well as demonstrated proof of concept. This year, we formed a relationship with a company in Great Britain, Cambridge Antibody Technology. In return for rights to develop antibody drugs using their technology and our antigens, we have the right to share the risk and the reward, i.e., sell the drug, on a 50-50 basis, once the scientists at Cambridge Antibody Technology have brought the drug through pre-clinical trials and have obtained permission to begin human trials. That agreement covers up to 18 different drugs. You can see from this description of HGS that our model, as a business, is one of the oldest: bringing new drugs to patients, bringing new drugs to the market. However, we bring to that business a very powerful new technology, technology based on systematic knowledge of human genes, technology that has led to a very strong patent portfolio. We have also structured a series of agreements which allow us not only to benefit from our own internal research, but to tap in to the external research of companies both large and small, to supplement and bolster our own pipeline. -Article from Twist