Embed Size (px)
Citation preview
CMYK
BUSINESS Sunday, March 3, 2019Nate McCullough | News Editor 770-718-3431 | [email protected]
The Times, Gainesville, Georgia 4D
Biz4D
By ANNE D’INNOCENZIOAssociated Press
NEW YORK — Gap Inc. is split-ting into two.
The retailer said that it’s cre-ating two independent publicly traded companies — low-priced juggernaut Old Navy and a yet-to-be named company, which will consist of the iconic Gap brand, Athleta, Banana Republic as well as the lesser known names Athleta, Intermix and Hill City.
The San Francisco-based com-pany said the spin-off will enable each company to focus on flexibil-ity and pare down costs.
The company also said that it will be shuttering 230 Gap brand stores over the next two years. A year ago, the Gap brand had 725 stores worldwide. After the closures, which also include the 68 stores it shuttered this year, the chain will be down to roughly 427 stores. It expects to have more than 40 per-
cent of Gap’s business coming from online after the restructuring.
Gap’s stock surged 25 percent in after-market trading.
The split up, which followed a comprehensive board review, comes as Old Navy has been thriv-ing, while Gap still hasn’t been able to regain its footing despite numer-ous attempts to fix the business. Once the go-to place for casual clothing, Gap has been mired in a sales funk for years, hurt by increasing competition from the likes of Target and Amazon.
Analysts applauded the move.“This is great news for Old Navy,
no longer having its success con-sistently outweighed by sluggish performance by Gap,” said Tiffany Hogan, senior analyst at Kantar Consulting. “But for the Gap, this seems like potentially a last signifi-cant effort to help the brand find its place in a market where it has lost relevance.”
She noted that in order for Gap
to succeed, it needs to find the right mix of style and basics for its stores, while getting a better grasp
of who its customer is.Separately, Gap Inc. reported
that Gap’s overall sales at stores
opened at least year were down 1 percent during the fiscal fourth quarter. By division, the Gap brand posted a 5 percent drop, while that figure at Banana Republic was down 1 percent. Old Navy posted sales that were unchanged from a year ago. But that was on top of a 9 percent gain in the year-ago period.
“It’s clear that Old Navy’s busi-ness model and customers have increasingly diverged from our specialty brands over time, and each company now requires a dif-ferent strategy to thrive moving forward,” said Robert Fisher, Gap Inc.’s chairman.
Gap’s current CEO, Art Peck, will hold the same position at the new company after the separa-tion. Sonia Syngal, current CEO of Old Navy, will continue to lead the brand as a stand-alone com-pany, which has about $8 billion in annual revenue. The new company that Peck will run has about $9 bil-lion in annual revenue.
Gap to split, with Old Navy gaining independence
By KELSEy [email protected]
Robbie Rupard, CEO of Pro-GeneX in Gainesville, believes that one size does not fit all and there is no magic button in health care.
After establishing his company more than four years ago, Rupard and Brett Grauss, CEO of Pro-GeneX Laboratories, have worked together to cut down on a patient’s number of medications and reduce adverse drug events.
“Our approach to the testing business (is) we’re not a pharma-cogenomics company, we’re a risk management company that uses a variety of tools to solve problems,” Rupard said.
Grauss said during the past decade the field of pharmacoge-nomics — the study of how genes affect a person’s response to drugs — has boomed because of advancements in science.
Instead of undergoing the trial-and-error method of figuring out which medications work best, many pharmacogenomics com-panies analyze a patient’s DNA to determine an individualized treatment.
How it startedThis growth was what first
caught the eye of Rupard more than four years ago.
After leaving a health care com-pany, and considering going back to the aviation field, Rupard was introduced to pharmacogenomics.
“Because this is the science of how genes impact the way medi-cations work in a person’s body, I thought, ‘Wow, that’s cool,’” Rupard said.
Like most people, he had experi-ences with doctors prescribing him medications that seemed to have no effect despite the dosage. Know-ing people respond differently to medications, he found himself drawn to the business perspective of the pharmacogenomics.
Partnering with PharMerica, Pro-GeneX has devoted most of its services to long-term care facilities.
Grauss said the company works with 270 long-term care facilities across the country, monitoring medications for 32,000 patients.
In its laboratory at the Brenau University Business Incubator at 999 Chestnut St. in Gainesville, Pro-GeneX takes people’s cheek swab samples and transforms the DNA into a personalized genetic profile.
With a lab on Brenau’s East Campus, Rupard said his company plans to get more involved with the school’s students through offering coursework and internships.
Pro-GeneX is also in the works of creating programs relating to opiod addiction, cancer genomics and nutrigenomics.
Personalized digital reportRupard and Grauss said what
makes Pro-GeneX stand out from other gene testing companies, is their simplified digital report.
Pro-GenX partnered with 21Medtech, a medical technologies company, to develop a program that takes a person’s genetic pro-file and gives a list of medications that work for that specific patient.
Rupard describes the program as a live data feed relationship between the pharmacy and a genomics dashboard that provides real-time reporting.
Patients and their providers can access the program to see if cer-tain medications match well with their DNA, or have potential side effects.
The software displays different categories with listed medications people shouldn’t use, those to take
with caution, standard drugs, those best suited for the patient and alternative drugs.
Rupard said in most cases with pharmacogenetics companies, physicians receive a 15-20 page report about how a person’s genes interact with certain medications.
With the Pro-GeneX report, he said doctors have an easier time interpreting the information as opposed to weeding through a long printed report.
“It’s brand new every time you look at it relative to the current medication list, your genetic pro-file and to the body of knowledge,” Rupard said. “Now we have a dynamic report instead of a static report. Because it’s all digital, we’re capable to push it into any system, whether Walgreens or an electronic health record.”
In the next 60 days, he said the program will be available via mobile app.
Even if someone is not in a long-term care facility that works with Pro-GeneX, people can still receive their own gene profile through the company.
From cheek swab to computer screen
Rupard said all of the cell col-lection is done at Pro-GeneX’s lab in Gainesville, where they take a person’s privacy and security very seriously.
Everyone’s genetic information is private and protected through the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act and the Genetic Information Nondiscrimi-nation Act.
The company collects people’s DNA through a swab, which is rubbed for 30 seconds against the inside of their cheek.
The samples are mixed with a solution, then transferred into plates which go into the King-Fisher instrument. Grauss said this machine collects the DNA and RNA, then goes through a series of rinses to obtain pure DNA.
Once the DNA is separated and purified, he said it is put into an incubator. The samples then are placed in a thermocycler, which copies and replicates the DNA.
The next part of the process involves the QuantStudio, which reads the genes. Based on the alleles, or variance of genes, Grauss said Pro-GeneX’s team is able to determine how a patient metabolizes certain drugs.
The price for the test and pro-gram is $199.
“They have data they can use for the rest of their lives,” Rupard said. “We feel like we’re doing an awful lot to minimize adverse drug effects and we’re taking the con-
tent of the report and turning it into context.”
Once the company receives a person’s genetic file, they send it to Translational Software in Seattle, who completes the genetic inter-pretation and provides a digital report for Pro-GeneX’s online program.
Growing health care impactSince offering its services to
long-term health care facilities across the country, physicians
have started taking advantage of Pro-GeneX’s report program.
Dr. Bradley Ward, a certified medical director of more than 30 long-term health care facilities in Georgia, said he has been using the company’s program for nearly three years.
Compared to other pharmacoge-nomics businesses, he said Pro-GeneX offers a simpler and more efficient report for physicians.
“For example, some of the other genetic testing companies I’ve seen reports from, they would give you the chemistry of it,” Ward said. “But, most physicians are not trained in genetics, so they don’t know what to do with the report.”
Ward said the overload of infor-mation deters physicians from taking the time to look through the long reports.
With Pro-GeneX’s program, he said the reports are more user friendly and simple from a format-ting standpoint.
When Ward introduced the pro-gram to the physicians at his facili-ties, he said they were skeptical at first.
“We were told that one day there will be personalized medicine, and were promised for 20 years now,” he said. “We’re now realizing this is real and very helpful.”
Ward said many of the residents at his nursing homes are on 10-15 different medications. Through having the genetic testing from Pro-GeneX, he said they are able to cut down on their intake.
Historically Ward said physi-cians have put patients on a partic-ular medication and hoped for the best. If it didn’t work, they would increase the dosage, take them off or choose an alternative medica-tion in the same chemical class.
“Well now with Robbie’s pro-gram, we now have information so we don’t have to do trial and error,” he said. “We go straight to the appropriate medication. That’s the big advantage.”
For more information about Pro-GeneX visit www.pro-genex.com or call 844-794-3637.
Photos by SCOTT ROGERS | The Times
Dan Laflamme, left, helps Brunie White, Briana Quezada and others Tuesday, Feb. 26, at Pro-Genex learn how to process samples at the Brenau University Business Incubator.
Chris Thompson reads a bottle of liquid before taking a sample Tuesday, Feb. 26, at Pro-Genex at the Brenau University Business Incubator. The company has developed a pharmacogenetic test to help patients and doctors receive more personalized health care.
Medicine made for your genesGainesville company’s real-time profile aims to shorten, maximize your prescription list
JOHN RAOux | Associated Press
This photo shows a Gap clothing store, Aug. 23, 2018, in Winter Park, Fla. Gap said late Thursday, Feb. 28, that it’s creating two independent publicly-traded companies.
