NOVEMBER 20249and therapeutic applications across a number of disease areas (depression, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's). A first clinical test analyzes circRNAs in the blood to predict a patient's response to SSRI antidepression medication, selecting and identifying patients that will respond well to different therapy options. This is an area of great potential as current first-line therapies that are standard of care for major depressive disorder (MDD) result in failure 60 percent of the time. Settling on an effective treatment most often happens only after patients have been through several months of treatment. These failed treatments and adverse events are a significant burden on patients, the healthcare system, and the economy. With $30bn spent annually on treatments for MDD and 60 percent treatment failure due to poor patient response, precision medicine approaches to diagnosis and treatment are much needed in psychiatry and will likely be the next frontier. Another Cottonwood company, Armonica, is focused on long-read DNA technology. Current short-read approaches represent virtually 100 percent of current DNA analysis but suffer from library preparation that destroys important epigenetic data. DNA does not change over time so the best case is identifying predispositions to various disorders ­ but not early detection. Long-read technology promises to be faster and cheaper, but most importantly retains the epigenetic data which can therefore detect triggering events for various forms of cancer and other disorders. This will be the ultimate in early detection and ultimately also lead to better medicine.These are just two examples from our portfolio that are representative of hundreds of technologies being funded globally that will change the future of healthcare. Genetics holds the promise for much earlier detection, and then once detected it allows for treatment to be tailored to each individual rather than applying a `one-size-fits-all' method
< Page 8 | Page 10 >