Neurobiological Technologies

Last updated

Neurobiological Technologies, Inc. ("NTI") was a biotechnology company that was founded in 1987 by Enoch Callaway and John B. Stuppin to in-license and develop drugs primarily to treat neurological conditions; the company was dissolved in 2009 after the failure of its drug candidate ancrod in a Phase III trial for ischemic stroke. [1] [2] [3]

The company pursued a virtual company model from the beginning, keeping staff as small as possible and outsourcing tasks to contract research organizations and contract manufacturing organizations. [4] [5]

At the time the company made its first public offering in 1996, it had three products in development: memantine, a small molecule for neuropathic pain and AIDS-related dementia, corticotropin-releasing factor, a biopharmaceutical to treat edema caused by brain tumors and inflammation caused by rheumatoid arthritis, and dynorphin A, a biopharmaceutical to treat pain. [1] It licensed patents covering methods to use memantine from Children's Hospital of Boston in 1995. [1]

In 1997 the company hired Paul Frieman as its CEO—Frieman was an experienced executive who had sold his biotech company three years before for $5.4B. [6] Frieman cut staff from 23 people to 9, and in 1998 amended NTI's agreement with Children's Hospital of Boston to allow the German company Merz Pharma, which had been marketing memantine in Europe for dementia since 1989 and was running similar clinical trials to those run by NTI, to take over development. [6] [7] Merz paid NTI $2.1M upfront and agreed to pay both NTI and Children's Hospital royalties. [7] [8]

In 2000 Merz partnered with Forest Laboratories to further develop memantine, and NTI received about $8 million from the upfront payment. [9] That money covered the approximately $5 million that NTI had put into development of memantine. [10]

In 2004 NTI acquired Empire Pharmaceuticals, which had one product: ancrod (Viprinex). [11] Empire had been formed by former employees of Knoll Pharmaceuticals, the German company that had discovered and started developing ancrod, and had acquired the rights to ancrod in 2002, after Knoll's acquisition by Abbott Laboratories in 2001. [11] [12] : 5  [13] NTI also acquired a batch of unpurified venom in the acquisition, and had that purified for use in its clinical trials. [10] [14]

Ancrod became NTI's lead product; in 2006 Frieman estimated annual sales $500 million to $1 billion. [10]

The company collapsed when a Phase III trial of ancrod was halted early in December 2008 when an independent review committee looked at the interim data and found no signal of benefit. [15] [16] [17] One of its main investors was the Biotechnology Value Fund, which put pressure on the company to dissolve and pay out its investors. [18] It cut staff in early 2009, then sought to sell off its assets, and finally dissolved in August 2009. [2] [17] [19]

The company's CEOs were:

Related Research Articles

Exelixis, Inc. is a genomics-based drug discovery company located in Alameda, California, and the producer of Cometriq, a treatment approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for medullary thyroid cancer with clinical activity in several other types of metastatic cancer.

Neurocrine Biosciences, Inc. is an American biopharmaceutical company founded in 1992. It is headquartered in San Diego, California, and led by CEO Kevin Gorman. Neurocrine develops treatments for neurological and endocrine-related diseases and disorders. In 2017, the company's drug valbenazine (Ingrezza) was approved in the US to treat adults with tardive dyskinesia (TD).

Ancrod is a defibrinogenating agent derived from the venom of the Malayan pit viper. Defibrinogenating blood produces an anticoagulant effect. Ancrod is not approved or marketed in any country. It is a thrombin-like serine protease.

Christoph Westphal is an American biomedical businessman.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Santaris Pharma</span> Biopharmaceutical company founded in Denmark

Santaris Pharma A/S was a biopharmaceutical company founded in 2003 in Copenhagen, Denmark. The company also had a branch in San Diego, California that opened in 2009. Created by a merger between Cureon and Pantheco, Santaris developed RNA-targeted medicines using a Locked Nucleic Acid (LNA) Drug Platform and Drug Development Engine.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alexion Pharmaceuticals</span> American healthcare company

Alexion Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a subsidiary of AstraZeneca, is a pharmaceutical company headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts that specializes in orphan drugs to treat rare diseases.

GTx, Inc. was a pharmaceutical company that is working on drugs in the selective estrogen receptor modulator (SERM) and selective androgen receptor modulator (SARM) classes. Its drugs in development included enobosarm (ostarine) and GTx-758.

Knoll Pharmaceuticals was a drug development company founded by Albert Knoll and Hans Knoll in Germany in 1886. The company was taken over by German BASF in 1975, which sold it to Abbott Laboratories on 30 June 2002 for $6.9 billion.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Galena Biopharma</span> American pharmaceutical company

Galena Biopharma, Inc. was a publicly traded pharmaceutical company based in San Ramon, California. The company was founded in Worcester, Massachusetts. In 2011, it moved to Oregon, and in 2015 moved to San Ramon, California. Mark Schwartz was the company's president and chief executive officer. As of December 29, 2017, the company was acquired by Sellas Life Sciences Group Ltd. through a reverse merger transaction. Galena Biopharma was renamed to Sellas Life Sciences Group, Inc..

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Incyte</span> American pharmaceutical company

Incyte Corporation is an American multinational pharmaceutical company with headquarters in Wilmington, Delaware, and Morges, Switzerland. The company was created in 2002 through the merger of Incyte Pharmaceuticals, founded in Palo Alto, California in 1991 and Incyte Genomics, Inc. of Delaware. The company currently operates manufacturing and R&D locations in North America, Europe, and Asia.

Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc. is an American biopharmaceutical company focused on the discovery, development and commercialization of RNA interference (RNAi) therapeutics for genetically defined diseases. The company was founded in 2002 and is headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In 2016, Forbes included the company on its "100 Most Innovative Growth Companies" list.

Acceleron Pharma, Inc. is an American clinical stage biopharmaceutical company based in Cambridge, Massachusetts with a broad focus on developing medicines that regulate the transforming growth factor beta (TGF-β) superfamily of proteins, which play fundamental roles in the growth and repair of cells and tissues such as red blood cells, muscle, bone, and blood vessels.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Samsung Biologics</span> South Korean biotechnology company

Samsung Biologics Co., Ltd. is a global contract development and manufacturing organization headquartered in Songdo, Incheon, South Korea. The biotech division of Samsung Group, its core services range from late discovery to large-scale commercial manufacturing. The company focuses on monoclonal antibodies, bispecific antibodies, antibody-drug conjugates, and mRNA vaccines.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Arbutus Biopharma</span> Canadian Bio Tech Company

Arbutus Biopharma Corporation is a publicly traded Canadian biopharmaceutical company with an expertise in liposomal drug delivery and RNA interference, and is developing drugs for hepatitis B infection.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Amicus Therapeutics</span> Pharmaceutical company

Amicus Therapeutics, Inc. is a public American biopharmaceutical company based in Philadelphia, PA. The company went public in 2007 under the NASDAQ trading symbol FOLD. This followed a 2006 planned offering and subsequent withdrawal, which would have established the trading symbol as AMTX Prior to their IPO, Amicus was funded by a variety of venture capital firms including Radius Ventures, Canaan Partners and New Enterprise Associates.

OncoMed Pharmaceuticals, Inc. was a public American pharmaceutical development company headquartered in Redwood City, California. The company was founded in August 2004 by two University of Michigan investigators, Michael Clarke and Max S. Wicha. As of 2013, the company had 83 employees. OncoMed's drug discovery work focuses on developing "targeted antibodies against cancer stem cells". The cancer stem cell technologies on which OncoMed depends are licensed from the University of Michigan where they were developed by the founders of the company. OncoMed went public in 2013 and was listed on NASDAQ under the stock symbol OMED. In April 2019 the company was acquired by Mereo BioPharma and delisted from the Nasdaq.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sio Gene Therapies</span> American pharmaceutical company

Sio Gene Therapies, Inc. was a clinical-stage pharmaceutical company that developed gene therapies to treat neurological disorders. The company was headquartered in New York City and was incorporated in Basel, Switzerland. The company was founded by former hedge fund analyst and 2024 Republican Party presidential primary candidate Vivek Ramaswamy in October 2014 as a wholly owned subsidiary of Roivant Sciences, which was itself founded in May 2014.

Roivant Sciences Ltd. is a healthcare company focused on applying technology to drug development and building subsidiary biotech and healthcare technology companies. It was founded in 2014 by Vivek Ramaswamy.

Puma Biotechnology is a publicly traded biopharmaceutical company headquartered in Los Angeles, CA.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fortress Biotech</span>

Fortress Biotech Inc., commonly known as Fortress Bio, is a biopharmaceutical company that acquires, develops, and commercializes innovative pharmaceutical and biotechnology products. Led by CEO Lindsay A. Rosenwald, M.D., Fortress and most of its subsidiary companies are headquartered in Bay Harbor Islands, Florida.

References

  1. 1 2 3 "Form 10-KSB For the fiscal year ended June 30, 1996". SEC Edgar. September 30, 1996. NTI-Children's license is included in the filing.
  2. 1 2 Brown, Steven E.F.; Leuty, Ron (August 31, 2009). "Neurobiological Technologies to dissolve". San Francisco Business Times.
  3. ↑ "Neurobiological Technologies Inc.: CEO and Executives - Bloomberg". Bloomberg. Archived from the original on 5 February 2017. Retrieved 5 February 2017.
  4. ↑ Welles, Edward O. (January 1, 1995). "The Awakening". Inc.
  5. ↑ Eichenwald, Kurt; Kolata, Gina (16 May 1999). "Drug Trials Hide Conflicts for Doctors". The New York Times.
  6. 1 2 Delevett, Peter (January 9, 2000). "Cash is king, focus is queen". Silicon Valley Business Journal.
  7. 1 2 Rauber, Chris (April 26, 1998). "A midget in the land of giants, Omni seeks a savior r". San Francisco Business Journal.
  8. ↑ "Exhibit 10.1: License and Cooperation Agreement". SEC Edgar.
  9. ↑ "Merz + Co and Forest link up for memantine". The Pharma Letter. July 6, 2000.
  10. 1 2 3 Smith, Aaron (February 24, 2006). "California biotech looking in snakes' mouths for stroke drug - Feb. 24, 2006". CNN Money.
  11. 1 2 "Neurobiological Tech buys Empire Pharma". The Pharma Letter. July 26, 2004.
  12. ↑ "Form 10-K For the fiscal year ended June 30, 2007". NTI via SEC Edgar. September 13, 2007.
  13. ↑ "Exhibit 10.18 License Agreement between Empire and Abbott, March 29, 2002". Law Insider.
  14. ↑ "Exhibit 10.1: Cooperation and Supply Agreement". NTI via SEC Edgar. Retrieved 5 February 2017.
  15. ↑ Asadi, H; Yan, B; Dowling, R; Wong, S; Mitchell, P (2014). "Advances in medical revascularisation treatments in acute ischemic stroke". Thrombosis. 2014: 714218. doi: 10.1155/2014/714218 . PMC   4293866 . PMID   25610642.
  16. ↑ Hao, Z; Liu, M; Counsell, C; Wardlaw, JM; Lin, S; Zhao, X (14 March 2012). "Fibrinogen depleting agents for acute ischaemic stroke". The Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews (3): CD000091. doi:10.1002/14651858.CD000091.pub2. PMC   11503785 . PMID   22419274.
  17. 1 2 Carroll, John (December 17, 2008). "Neurobiological Tech halts enrollment, prepares cuts". FierceBiotech.
  18. ↑ "DealBook: Drug Investors Lose Patience". New York Times. March 10, 2009.
  19. ↑ Myers, Calisha (January 13, 2009). "Neurobiological Technologies, Inc. (NTII) Ends Stroke Drug Development; Cuts Jobs". FierceBiotech.
  20. ↑ "Schedule 14a: Notice of Meeting and Proxy Statement". SEC Edgar. October 11, 1996.
  21. ↑ Leuty, Ron (July 2, 2008). "Neurobiological Technologies' Freiman to retire". San Francisco Business Journal.
  22. ↑ Myers, Calisha (February 4, 2009). "Neurobiological Technologies, Inc. Announces Appointment of William A. Fletcher as Acting CEO". FierceBiotech.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.