Start-Up Previews (6/02)
Executive Summary
A preview of the emerging health care companies profiled in the current issue of Start-Up. This month's profile group, Gene Delivery, features profiles of ImaRx Therapeutics Inc., Intradigm Corp., Protiva Biotherapeutics Inc. and Tranzyme Inc. Plus these Selected Start-Ups across Health Care: FASgen Inc., Power Medical Interventions Inc., NephRx Corp. and Tessera Diagnostics Inc.
This month's profile group: Gene
Delivery: Looking Past the Skeptics
ImaRx Therapeutics Inc. aims to use
a diagnostic contrast agent as a vehicle for drug and gene
delivery. The company will encapsulate a therapeutic payload in a
synthetic microbubble, inject it into the body, then apply
ultrasound across the skin to rupture the microbubble at the
targeted site. Shockwaves from the rupture are thought to permeate
capillary walls and drive the drug or gene instantaneously into the
targeted tissue.
Intradigm Corp. is using its gene
delivery technology for discovery purposes—creating animal
models that its clients can use for high-throughput, in vivo
validation of gene function. The company will also license its
delivery technology to gene therapy companies, and eventually
generate targets for in-house development.
Inex Pharmaceuticals Corp. spin-off
Protiva Biotherapeutics Inc. hopes to
solve two of the problems associated with liposomal gene delivery
with stable and easy-to-produce liposome capsules that increase
circulation time and preferentially target tumor sites, allowing
for effective systemic injection.
Founded to commercialize a re-engineered HIV virus for
therapeutic gene delivery, Tranzyme Inc. has moved on to
additional applications. It is using its gene delivery and
expression technology to create genetically altered animal models
in species that haven't lent themselves to genetic manipulation,
and it is also embarking on the discovery and development of
neurosensory drugs.
Start-Ups across Health Care
The serendipitous discovery of fatty acid synthetase (FAS) in
tumor biopsies led a team of Johns Hopkins University
researchers to start studying the role of
FAS in cancer. Some 15 years after discovery, the researchers have
founded FASgen Inc. to develop small
molecule FAS inhibitors for cancer, obesity, and tuberculosis.
NephRx Corp. is using growth
factors to combat renal and gastrointestinal disorders. It is
starting with the kidney failure market, where it aims to offer
injectable growth factors that could be delivered in hospitals and
clinics to augment dialysis for patients suffering from acute renal
failure.
Power Medical Interventions Inc.
hopes that nice mid-size device companies can finish first. This
three-year old device company has already hit the market with the
first incarnation of its computer-assisted wound closure platform:
a surgical stapling system that will allow automated stapling in
areas of the body that are inaccessible to current, rigid
devices.
Eyeing the unmet clinical need and the commercial opportunities
for cancer markers, Tessera Diagnostics Inc.
has licensed a number of biological
markers for prostate cancer that it aims to turn into diagnostics
that will be easier to administer and faster and more accurate than
existing methods of detecting and staging prostate cancer.
