Connetics Corporation develops and markets therapeutics for the dermatology market, selling two products, Luxiq and OLUX, both of which use the company's proprietary foam delivery system. Luxiq, the company's first dermatology product, and OLUX treat psoriasis of the scalp. The products are classified as topical steroids; Luxiq competes in the mid-potency category of the topical steroids market and OLUX competes in the high- and super-high potency category of the topical steroids market. Connetics also owns the rights to Soriatane, an oral psoriasis drug originally developed by Switzerland-based La Roche Holding. Connetics follows what it refers to as its "4:2:1" development model, a strategy that calls for the company to have four products in development, two products in final stage trials mandated by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and one new, FDA-approved, product every year.
Origins
During its first decade of existence, Connetics was a company trying to find itself. Both its name and its strategic focus were changed during its inaugural decade, as the company's executives worked to find the right niche for their pharmaceutical company. The company began as an enterprise named Connective Therapeutics, Inc., which was spun off in 1993 from another pharmaceutical company, San Francisco-based Genentech, Inc. Connective Therapeutics drew its name from the physiological focus of its business strategy, concentrating on connective tissues, the components of the body that form structural or binding elements such as skin, joints, ligaments, and lining of organs. Connective tissues form the three-dimensional structure that allow cells to function normally; any alteration in the precise framework causes organs to function abnormally, aberrations that Connective Therapeutics sought to eliminate or to treat with its pharmaceutical products.
Connective Therapeutics began business without any marketable products. The company's drugs were under development, still undergoing clinical trials subject to FDA approval. Connective Therapeutics' initial products were obtained through licensing agreements with two companies, its progenitor, Genentech, and Berkeley, California-based XOMA Corporation, a company with a history of collaborating with Genentech. Connective Therapeutics entered into its licensing agreement with Genentech in September 1993, when the company gained the exclusive worldwide rights to relaxin, a natural hormone that helped lessen the hardening of skin and connective tissue and stimulated new blood vessel growth. In June 1994, Connective Therapeutics signed its agreement with XOMA, giving it technology and patent rights to TCR (T-cell Receptor) Peptide, a vaccine product used to treat multiple sclerosis and rheumatoid arthritis.