Arca Discovery
Based: Denver Why It's Fierce: Dr. Michael Bristow knows a thing or two about launching a biotech company. He founded Myogen 10 years ago, and that company has made major headway developing Ambrisentan to treat pulmonary arterial hypertension. R ecently, though, he stepped out of his role as Myogen's chief science and medical officer (he'll stay on as science advisor) to take over the full time job of launching ARCA Discovery. He rounded up $15 million in venture capital and is readying an NDA for bucindolol, the "first genetically-targeted cardiovascular drug." Why start over? "I'm a scientist and I create intellectual property science and I have a strong desire to commercialize intellectual property," says Bristow. "It allows me to continue doing something I do best." With three in-licensed programs up and running and a major collaboration with Novartis, Bristow had to look to a new company to get going again. "We plan on developing a series of drugs with pharmacogenomic targets," says Bristow. "And we're looking at other opportunities as well." Maybe bucindolol was just too good an opportunity to pass up. It's already produced Phase III clinical trial data from more than 3,000 patients with advanced heart failure and myocardial ischemia. Bristow has 30 years of experience in the cardiovascular arena, which helped him discover a genetic biomarker that had a high correlation to the patients who didn't respond to the trials. Bucindolol was out-licensed by Indevus and Incara, complete with data that Bristow and others had studied long after the trial was suspended in 1999. Bristow now believes he can take that data straight to the FDA without mounting a new trial. With Bristow working on an NDA for a lead compound that he believes has a good shot at approval, he has the chance to create value early on and build the company up without having to arrange a lot of early investment capital. What to look for: The NDA will take about a year, and Bristow is intent on signing up a sales and marketing partner. He also intends to develop a molecular diagnostic test that will be needed to identify patients. He's in talks to identify a partner for the test as well. |
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