Riley Genomics, or RiGen, is building a comprehensive network of doctors,
laboratories, IT infrastructure and software networks to vastly improve
the effectiveness of rheumatoid arthritis diagnostics and treatment.
But RiGen needed a new name to differentiate it from the pack of surname-saddled
biotech company names and to support the brand positioning of capturing
the excitement of "building
momentum" toward better treatment and eventually a cure for this
terrible disease. So the company turned to Igor for help.
After considering many Evocative and Experiential names
that mapped to
concepts of momentum, movement, and the amplifying attributes of the
network effect, Igor created Crescendo as the company's new name to perfectly
convey the sense of power and the upwelling of hope
and joy that is the great promise of their new approach to solving the
scourge of rheumatoid arthritis and other rheumatologic disorders.
Crescendo Bioscience is developing a broad range of quantitative, objective
diagnostic tools to provide Rheumatologists with deeper clinical insights
to more effectively manage patients with autoimmune and inflammatory
diseases.
The Company is initially focused on rheumatoid arthritis, a debilitating,
highly variable, chronic disease affecting over 1.5 million patients
in the US and more than 3 million in Europe. Current diagnostic tools
for assessing the status of rheumatoid arthritis sufferers are largely
subjective, imprecise and cumbersome to administer in daily practice.
Although there is no known cure, there are multiple therapeutics with
widely differing effectiveness (and adverse reactions) in individual
patients. Choosing among these treatment options is a tremendous challenge.
Working with collaborators in leading academic medical institutions,
Crescendo Bioscience is building a comprehensive understanding of the
biology underlying rheumatoid arthritis, including the characterization
of protein and gene expression biomarkers, to provide molecular staging
of the disease and guidance for the treatment of individual patients.
