In the overall scheme of things that is the SBIR space, ICAgen has been a small bit player with a single Phase I in the mid-nineties from NIH that went to Phase II but with both awards totalling less that $700K while the amount of money flowing through the firm over time run to hundreds of millions of dollars. A complex but interesting story indicative of the development of the Pharma Medtech and Bio space, ICAgen Inc - originally dba as Ion Channel Advances, then as Neutentis, Caldera Pharmaecuticals and then as Xpro -organized around biological and computer-simulated assays to discover ion channel drugs. The firm raised significant amounts of VC when that was not easy and also went public. At various points along the way, the firm had many forms of collaborative working relationships to include in- and out licensing with many of the players in the field: corporate, other small firms, academic institutions, non-profits and federal entities. At one point acquired by Pfizer for that firm only 4-5 years later selling to assets to XRpro for $500K. The most recent posting (December 2018) indicates Roche as having signed a deal with ICAgen for the Larger firm to license the rights to develop and sell Icagen Inc.s small molecules for difficult-to-treat CNS diseases.
