IZB MARTINSRIED/MUNICH
IZB companies: product progress plus new grant awards from BMBF
We report on the latest developments at IZB member companies, including a new patent award, clinical trial results, and new funding for companies from the German Federal Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF).
C
urrent developments at IZB firms show that bringing medical research to market needs time and money but also prove that a flexible
infrastructure and programmes that promote medical progress are having beneficial effects. One example is 4SC AG, which has been a member of IZB since 2001. The company discovers and develops targeted small-molecule drugs for the treatment of diseases with a high unmet medical need in various autoimmune and cancer indications. 4SC will soon enhance patent protection for its lead anti-cancer compound resminostat in the Asia-Pacific region, with the patent authorities in Korea, India and the Philippines recently indicating that the granting of a composition-of-matter patent for the drug is now imminent in these countries. A patent for resminostat has already been granted in Taiwan. The patents in these four countries cover the composition of matter of the compound resminostat itself, pharmaceutical compositions comprising resminostat, and its therapeutic use in cancer and other therapeutic areas.
In addition to developments with resminostat, positive data for 4SC’s vidofludimus, a novel, orally administered small molecule for the treatment of autoimmune disorders such as inflammatory bowel disease, will soon enable the company to run a clinical Phase 2b study in this indication. With the recent establishment of its subsidiary 4SC Discovery GmbH to commercialise its innovative early-stage drug research, the company is becoming more established as a significant player in the life sciences sector.
www.4sc.de
Clinical trial results from SuppreMol
Another example showing how an incubator with excellent infrastructure such as IZB can help young biotech companies is that of autoimmune diseases specialist SuppreMol GmbH.
The company started its business in IZB in 2005 and recently presented interim results of its Phase 1b/2a clinical trial of SM101 to treat
European biotech industry award
primary immune thrombocytopenia (ITP). The Phase 1b section of this multi-centric trial enrolled 36 patients who received up to 12 mg/kg intravenous doses of SM101 as weekly administrations for four weeks. The company reported that SM101 was safe and well tolerated and that the data also verified the findings of an earlier Phase 1a trial in 48 healthy volunteers who did not report any dose-limiting toxicity of the drug. The study showed a dose-dependent platelet increase confirming the first therapeutic activity of SM101 in humans. In the highest dosage group, the increase of platelet level continued throughout the three-month follow-up period. SuppreMol said no ITP rescue treatment was necessary in these patients. The company intends to report full Phase 1b data later this year.
www.suppremol.com
Growth at Evotec
That it is possible for a company to keep growing without changing location is illustrated by Evotec. When this Hamburg, Germany located company completed its acquisition of IZB enterprise Kinaxo in 2011, it decided to open a second German location, Evotec Munich, in IZB Martinsried to take advantage of the local network and infrastructure.
Evotec recently announced strong growth and has made focused investments driving profitability and innovation. Revenues in 2011 grew by 45 per cent to €80.1 million, with profitability up by 123 per cent.
The company has a strong liquidity position of €62 million.
www.evotec.com
Other IZB companies making good progress are LEUKOCARE and ibidi GmbH. LEUKOCARE, which specialises in stabilising technologies for proteins and vaccines, has been awarded the 2011 European Biotechnology Industry Early Stage Investment Opportunity Award by research consultancy Frost & Sullivan. In the citation for the award, Frost & Sullivan focused on the innovative nature of LEUKOCARE’s Stabilizing and Protecting Solutions and the company’s strategic position in fast-growing markets. LEUKOCARE provides technologies for biological functionalisation of medical devices and the stabilisation and protection of proteins and biological molecules in biopharmaceutical formulations in order to ensure safety, to extend shelf-life and to enable terminal sterilisation. The company applies its proprietary Stabilizing and Protecting Solutions (SPS) in co-development partnerships for the formulation of biologics, biofunctional coatings of combination devices, and product development.
www.leukocare.com
Cell analysis product line extended ibidi GmbH, a supplier of solutions for analysing living cells, has extended its LifeAct product line for undisturbed visualisation of actin cytoskeleton organisation and dynamics. LifeAct binds to proteins without constraining activity. For long-term actin visualisation, ibidi is now offering a stable LifeAct expressing the fibrosarcoma cell line (HT-1080 LifeAct- TagGFP2). This cell line shows identical characteristics and behaviour to the parental HT-1080 cell line and guarantees a minimum of 25 passages with undisturbed LifeAct expression. ibidi paid special attention to the functional characterisation of the cell line in order to prove that it is optimised for cell-based assays such as migration, chemotaxis, and wound healing. Further LifeAct expressing cell lines, including basic and functional characterisation studies, are also under development. One example of the use of LifeAct is in combination with the company’s new transfection reagent Torpedo
March/April 2012 sp2 Inter-Active 31
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