Biotech firms receive funds

By April Wilkerson
The Journal Record

Nov 3, 2010

OKLAHOMA CITY - Several of Oklahoma's biotechnology companies have received nearly $3 million through a portion of the health care reform bill set aside to boost their efforts.

The money is part of the Therapeutic Discovery Project, which provided $1 billion nationwide for small biotech companies that show significant potential to produce new and cost-saving therapies, support good jobs and increase U.S. competitiveness.

The program allowed companies with 250 or fewer employees to apply for a tax credit of 50 percent of the qualifying investments they made in 2009 and 2010; companies that aren't yet profitable can apply for a cash grant. Oklahoma biotech and pharmaceutical companies began applying for the money in May, and they received word this week of their awards, all in the form of cash grants.

Among them is Midwest Medical Isotopes LLC, a seven-year-old Oklahoma City company that provides specialized isotopes for PET (positron emission tomography) scanning. Dr. George Chacko, president of the company, said it also devotes a significant amount of its resources to research and the development of new PET agents that are cancer-specific.

Midwest Medical Isotopes received two awards for investments it made in 2009, both for $244,479.25. Chacko said the money is sorely needed and will be put to good use. The company has one research project under way, looking at how a new isotope works in patients with brain tumors. An upcoming study uses the same isotope to look at patients with prostate cancer.

"With this funding, we see potential of hiring 10 or 15 or even 20 more people," Chacko said. "It gives us the opportunity to hire more people to accelerate the progress of products in our pipeline. These are well-paying jobs - our engineers and chemists make $60,000 a year. It's very exciting for us to receive this funding because we've done it pretty much on our own all this time without getting any government funding."

Chacko said it's also expensive to operate and maintain his company's cyclotron, the machine that produces isotopes. The company employs 10 people who work on the cyclotron and do research in a 7,000-square-foot facility.

The timing of the money also was good for DormaTarg Inc., an Oklahoma City company dedicated to finding drugs that selectively and safely kill suppressed cancer cells before they reactivate and harm the patient. The company received 2009 and 2010 awards, in the amounts of $84,821.78 and $88,222.34, respectively.

DormaTarg is working on three compounds that target cancer cells. Its lead compound, which focuses on breast, bladder and pancreas cancers, is the farthest along and will benefit the most from the federal money, said Kris Vermelis, director of business development. The company also will use the money to continue paying its principal investigator for grants, he said, and it will leverage the money for additional awards that require one-to-one matches.

"We really needed this tax credit," Vermelis said. "We had a funding gap, and this really bridges that gap and allows us to sustain the company, not indefinitely, but definitely until we find out about a couple of other grants that we're being awarded."

Other Oklahoma companies receiving money through the Therapeutic Discovery Project are: Altheus Therapeutics, Charlesson, COARE Biotechnology, Immuno-Mycologics (IMMY), NanoBioMagnetics, NanoMed Targeting Systems, OMEDtech, Selexys Pharmaceuticals and Siwa Biotech Corp.

Their grant amounts ranged from $33,960 to $244,479. Charlesson, an Oklahoma City company that develops therapies for eye diseases, received the most money, with awards for three different therapies. Its funding for 2009 and 2010 totaled $733,437.72.

Several companies received the $244,479.24 amount, including Altheus Therapeutics, Midwest Medical Isotopes and Selexys Pharmaceuticals.

Rick Alvarez, co-founder of Selexys, spoke about the costly and lengthy process of drug development in previous interviews. The national average for taking a new drug to market is $800 million to $1 billion over 10 to 12 years, he said. Selexys plans to file an investigational new drug (IND) claim late this year or early next year for its drug for sickle cell disease. That effort paves the way toward the first clinical trials in humans sometime next year. A second drug, for Crohn's disease, is following about four to six months behind the sickle cell drug.

"Money from this program (Therapeutic Discovery Project) would give us working capital to extend the runway so we can get a little further down the path," Alvarez said. "The challenge for venture capital investment is that the further down that path you are, the more likely you are to raise significant money. Typically, venture capitalists want to see at least an IND filed, and more typically they want to see safety data in a Phase 1 trial. So it would be a tremendous help to us if we were able to get some of this money."

Sheri Stickley, president and CEO of the Oklahoma Bioscience Association, said she hopes that Congress and the administration extends and expands the program.

"The entire state benefits from the growth of our bioscience sector and the high-quality, high-wage jobs it generates, not to mention the potential for new therapies and new cures," Stickley said.

Original Article at journalrecord.com