Company Watch

Company: Affymetrix
www.affymetrix.com
Revenues: $327.1 million

Innovation: A pioneer in commercializing DNA microarrays, which allow for large-scale analysis of genetic samples, the company has made acquisitions that will let it analyze proteins and other biomarkers.

Company: Amgen
www.amgen.com
Revenues: $14.6 billion

Innovation: Its drug for colorectal cancer comes with a recommendation that patients be genetically screened to see if they would benefit from it.

Company: AstraZeneca
www.astrazeneca.com
Revenues: $32.8 billion

Innovation: Has moved aggressively into personalized therapeutics; its drug olaparib is now being tested in cancer patients with specific genetic mutations.

Company: Celera Genomics
www.celera.com
Revenues: $167.1 million

Innovation: Is trying to broaden the reach of personalized medicine into cardiac health.

Company: Celldex Therapeutics
www.avantimmune.com
Revenues: $15.2 million

Innovation: Is developing technology for protein analysis, which is critical for translating genetic data into therapeutically valuable knowledge.

Company: GlaxoSmithKline
www.gsk.com
Revenues: $45.8 billion

Innovation: Tackling the diseases of aging

Company: Helicos Biosciences
www.helicosbio.com
Revenues: $3.0 million

Innovation: Has set its sights on developing technology that can sequence a human genome in a day, at a cost of $1,000.

Company: Life Technologies
www.invitrogen.com
Revenues: $3.3 billion

Innovation: Created from the merger of Applied Biosystems and Invitrogen in 2008. Applied Biosystems’ machines were instrumental in completing the Human Genome Project; it is now developing a range of next-generation sequencing instruments.

Company: Medtronic
www.medtronic.com
Revenues: $15.8 billion

Innovation: Stimulating the brain

Company: Roche
www.roche.com
Revenues: $47.9 billion

Innovation: It acquired 454 Life Sciences, which develops DNA sequencing machines, including a desktop sequencer suitable for rapid sequencing of small genomes or portions of a human genome.