Biotech: Area Pharmaceuticals Showcase Findings
Chances are if you were trying to track down top executives of a local biotechnology company last week, you were lucky at all to catch them on their cell phones.
Last week was packed with high-profile conferences. And several local companies leaped at the opportunity to tout their latest findings, contrast theirs with those of the competition, and court investors.
San Diego-based Maxim Pharmaceuticals Inc.’s president and CEO Larry Stambaugh ranked among them. Having just returned from the 52nd meeting of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases in Dallas, Stambaugh sounded a bit winded.
For good reason. Hundreds of doctors and industry members flock to these scientific meetings from around the globe, offering companies an ideal platform to spread the word on their products.
Stambaugh said he used this forum to talk to hundreds of hepatologists (liver specialists) about Ceplene, Maxim’s experimental hepatitis C drug.
It’s important to get these doctors on your side, because they ultimately make the decision whether to use a drug or not, he said.
Some of them may be interested enough to lead the clinical trials that deliver data companies need to see if their product is safe and effective.
Also present were representatives of the large pharmaceutical firms. They have the deep pockets that smaller biotechs rely on to move their drugs through the costly developmental stages.
Stambaugh said Schering-Plough, a big pharmaceutical firm in Kenilworth, N.J, will contribute $5 million, or half the cost for a planned European trial, testing 280 patients who have failed prior treatment with Ceplene in combination with standard therapies.
A completed pilot study showed that after 18 months, the hepatitis C virus could no longer be detected in 28 percent, or 5 of 18 patients, and in 38 percent of patients that completed at least four weeks of the study, Maxim reported.
Stambaugh hopes that Ceplene will ultimately be approved as a combination therapy.
That is potentially in combo with Schering’s two approved hepatitis C drugs or two other promising drugs made by Hoffmann-La Roche Inc. of Nutley, N.J., another large pharmaceutical firm.
But Maxim still has a long way to go before it can seek drug approval with the Food and Drug Administration.
Two other companies, Idun Pharmaceuticals Inc. and Acadia Pharmaceuticals Inc. also presented early findings at conferences in Anaheim and San Diego.
Idun, which focuses in the area of programmed cell death in treating cancer, heart disease and neurodegenerative disorders, presented data on rats at the 11th annual American Heart Association meeting in Anaheim.
The evidence suggested that when the Idun compound was given after the blocked arteries were reopened following a simulated heart attack in rats, it reduced the amount of heart tissue damage by 27 percent in heart attacks that damaged a large portion of the heart and 55 percent in heart attacks that damaged a small portion. Idun also said the compound preserved the function of the heart.
Follow-up experiments are underway with pigs, Idun reported.
Acadia presented early data at the 31st annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience in San Diego on a molecule dubbed AC 90222, a potential treatment for symptoms of schizophrenia.
Findings in mice suggest that the molecule may improve cognition, such as memory, and help with antipsychotic behavior while avoiding side effects, Acadia said.
