The Companies to Watch column spotlights small, entrepreneurial biopharma companies that are developing their own products (not just a platform) with little or no press coverage to date, and offering an interesting story involving useful business lessons.
Madrigal Pharmaceuticals is taking on NASH and other liver diseases by targeting the thyroid hormone beta receptor. The company expects to begin seeing top line Phase 2 trial results in late 2017, with more released in 2018.
By early 2016, Arena’s board decided to remake the company, beginning with new management and a new strategy. Since then, the company has evolved back to a core drug development platform.
ProMIS Neurosciences believes inaccurate targeting of mAbs is to blame, in fact, for lack of progress against Alzheimer’s disease.
Outside skepticism about GeNeuro’s scientific concept has made fund-raising even harder than usual for a startup. But the Swiss company has found considerable support in Europe.
Frequency Therapeutics is an early-stage developer of small molecule drugs to activate “progenitor cells” and restore healthy tissue. Its lead program is in treating hearing loss by regenerating sensory cells in the inner ear, for which it is planning a Phase 1 trial to launch in mid-2018.
To heal the wounds — maintaining and restoring cellular homeostasis with novel secretomes.
An anti-infective immunotherapy developer on a mission to replace antibiotics with engineered antibodies and novel mechanisms.
In Phase 3 with an innovatively delivered drug to treat a deadly complication of ruptured brain aneurysm.
There is no grand plan for a whole year of Companies to Watch (CtW). Each month, a single candidate makes the cut for a single column. Nevertheless, patterns emerge among the CtWs as the year progresses and come into focus as it ends.
On a mission to develop the first FDA-approved, durable-efficacy therapeutic for lactose intolerance
Daniel Skovronsky, M.D., Ph.D., is the SVP of clinical and product development at Eli Lilly and Company. But prior to taking on this role, he held the title of CEO of Avid Radiopharmaceuticals — a company he founded in Philadelphia while still a graduate student at the University of Pennsylvania. This article explores some of the differences between this executives past and present roles, and is a good prequel to the upcoming article that explores how he went about building a $300 million company.
When I interviewed Axovant Sciences CEO David Hung, one of the questions posed was sparked by our discussion of his experience at Pro-Duct Health and his invention of a microcatheter for early detection of ductal breast cancer in women. As he explained his medical device invention, Hung commented, “I don’t want to be just medicines, or just devices, or anything like that.”
Chief Editor Rob Wright recently conducted an in-person interview with David Hung, formerly of Medivation and current CEO of Axovant Sciences. Though many may credit the FDA’s approval of Medivation’s Xtandi (enzalutamide) as being the primary driver behind Hung’s rise, Wright argues that there are a number of other predictors that should be evaluated when anticipating future success.
Today we stand on the precipice overlooking a new frontier — the century of biology, and businesses of all kinds need to be prepared to not only embrace what is coming, but have a strategy for how to leverage biology for the betterment of their businesses and the good of the planet.
Life Science Leader Chief Editor Rob Wright is cochairing the 2018 BIO educational program planning committee. In this blog he talks about why this was the earliest the planning committee has ever met and what you can do to submit interesting and novel session proposals that will get the attention of the committee.
