Lexington company has new analytic device

Christopher D. McNary, president of RainDance Technologies, with a fluidic circuit chip used in the DNA sequence enrichment process. (JOANNE RATHE/GLOBE STAFF)

LEXINGTON - RainDance Technologies Inc. has come up with a revolutionary technology, the company says, that will change the way laboratory samples are analyzed for medical research and drug preparation.

"What we're essentially doing is replacing the test tube with a platform that produces [tiny] droplets at a rate of 10 million per hour," said Stephen E. Becker, 44, vice president of commercial operations. "Each droplet, the equivalent of an individual test tube, might contain a single molecule, reaction, or cell."

"We recognize that this new technology platform will change the way science is done," chief executive Christopher D. McNary, 53, said during a recent interview in the company's 27,000-square-foot facility off Hartwell Avenue, where there are 52 employees. Thirteen others will be hired by year's end, he said.

McNary, who previously had been a vice president and general manager of Waltham-based Thermo Fisher Scientific, said he's "unaware of any other [company or institution] using our patented technology."

RainDance's first instruments are expected to be delivered to laboratories in November, McNary said, adding that prices have yet to be announced. The instruments will be used for DNA resequencing, a major step "in detecting mutations associated with various congenital diseases," he said. "This is a $1 billion market."

Much of the technology was developed in a Harvard University laboratory run by David A. Weitz, 57, a professor of physics and applied physics. He is also a founder of the four-year-old firm along with Darren R. Link, 40, RainDance's vice president of research, and Andrew Griffiths, 44, a British scientist who is currently conducting research in Strasbourg, France.

The technology has been five years in the making.

"We took droplets of water in oil and used fluid devices to manipulate the droplets with enormous precision," Weitz said.

Besides its technology, the company has another distinction, according to McNary. "We were the first to relocate to Massachusetts in May of this year, to take advantage of " a bill passed by the Legislature that will provide $1 billion worth of grants and tax incentives over a 10-year period to the life sciences industry.

RainDance received some tax incentives and assistance from state officials in finding modern office and laboratory space, said McNary, noting that the Hartwell Avenue building had been home to MGI Pharmaceutical, which is now across the street.

The first offices of RainDance in Guilford, Conn., he said, were shared with The Rothberg Institute for Childhood Diseases. Jonathan Rothberg, 45, was one of RainDance's first investors and is now the Lexington company's chairman.

In the first half of 2007, the company received 'a little more than $30 million from venture capital firms,' McNary said. The lead firms are Mohr Davidow Ventures and Alloy Ventures, both based in Menlo Park, Calif.

Susan Siegel, a Mohr Davidow partner, said, "RainDance is enabling experiments on how the human genome can be played out." Once the stock market gyrations are over, RainDance will have an initial public offering, Siegel said. "But if the economy doesn't improve in due course, there could be another round of funding."

The Lexington firm also receives about $1 million a year from grants and collaborations, McNary said. Last month, for example, RainDance began a nonfunded collaborative effort on aging and disease with Scripps Translational Science Institute of San Diego.

"We'll explore the genetic makeup of older individuals to try to determine what predisposes some to good health and others to poor health," said Becker, the RainDance vice president.

Richard J. Roberts, 64, one of three Nobel Prize winners on RainDance's scientific advisory board, said the company's technology shows particular promise "for pushing medical diagnostics research." Roberts, who won a Nobel in 1993 for physiology or medicine, is chief scientific officer of New England Biolabs of Beverly.

The other Nobel winners are Jean-Marie Lehn (chemistry, 1987) and Aaron Klug (chemistry, 2002), who are now conducting research in France and England, respectively.

Sometime this fall, a contract will be signed with "a European country," McNary said. "A European pharmaceutical firm will also be involved in the analysis of drug compounds aimed at developing new drugs." A long-term goal in the drug-discovery field "is to develop drugs based on individuals' genetic makeup," he said.

"In the fast-emerging, so-called personalized medicine sector, the focus is on predicting and preventing disease. And we're very much a part of that movement," Becker said.