Date: Aug 17, 2012 Author: Lauren K. Ohnesorge Source: bizjournals (
click here to go to the source)
DURHAM -- Pharma startup BioMarck, already betting millions on its lung treatment, is upping the stakes with a $2 million debt financing round.
The company, which has raised more than $18 million in grants and equity to date, just completed a Phase 2a trial. Now that the correct dosage for its drug has been established, another trial is needed, says founding scientist Kenneth Adler, a Ph.D. in cell biology.
To do it, the company has taken on its first debt-financing round, but so far the round has come up short, with just $266,446 of a targeted $2 million raised.
Adler, who created the technology behind the company's lung drug at North Carolina State University, has $750,000 of his own money invested in the company. "At this point, I've not made a nickel from BioMarck," he says.
And no one will if the drug doesn't reach market.
Selling the company is the only way Adler says he'll be able to profit from the technology, but he declined to say whether that is in the works.
CEO Indu Parikh, who took the reigns after departing CEO Allen Gant retired last year, says debt financing is a faster option this time around. He says the company is actively look at all finance options, but that selling the company is probably not an option now.
Among those who have invested in BioMarck since its 2002 founding are former BioMarck and Glen Raven CEO Allen Gant, former Goodmark Foods CEO Ron Doggett and Raleigh investor Kennedy O'Herron, according to U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filings.
BioMarck's technology, as well as the company name, surrounds a protein called the MARCKS protein and Adler's discovery that it's involved in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or COPD.
"In human lung disease, we have excess mucus and excess inflammation," he says, adding that the peptides he discovered block the MARCKS protein from instigating those symptoms. BioMarck's inhalation drug candidate is currently being tested on patients with chronic bronchitis.
"Right now, there are no drugs that specifically block mucus and inflammation for chronic bronchitis," he says. There are other treatments, such as "bronchodilators" that cause the muscles surrounding the airways to relax. "They offer a little bit of relief," he adds, but they do not directly target the mucus that interferes with the ability of chronic bronchitis patients to get oxygen.
Steroid treatments are also prescribed, but haven't been as effective as needed, he says.
BioMarck faces huge competition in the race to develop a COPD drug. John Walsh, president and co-founder of the Washington, D.C.-based COPD Foundation, says the pipeline of such drug candidates is "as full as it's ever been."
"There are probably eight companies working on multiple products," he says, adding that many of the technologies are very similar.
For now, the market is dominated by pharma giants including AstraZeneca, GlaxoSmithKline and Merck that market products to ease the symptoms of COPD under the brand names, respectively, of Symbicort, Advair and Singulair.
Data research firm Datamonitor Research released a report in November projecting the market for COPD products will grow to $9.6 billion by 2020. COPD is the third leading cause of death in the U.S., according to the American Lung Association. "And it's an even bigger problem globally," ALA Chief Medical Officer Dr. Norman Edelman says.
Dr. Barry Make, lung expert at Denver, Colo.-based National Jewish Health, says a drug that could treat phlegm would be "tremendous."
Lauren Ohnesorge covers information technology and entrepreneurship.
