x
Westphal also assembled an impressive list of directors -
they include Alkermes's Pops; Aldrich, the Boston hedge fund manager and biotech veteran; and Paul Schimmel, a prominent scientist at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, Calif., who has co-founded half a- dozen biotech concerns. Westphal's right arm at Sirtris is chief operating officer Garen Bohlin, 59, formerly a senior executive at the genetics institute, a biotech now owned by Wyeth.
The Sirtris team wasted very little time reaching its first milestone, which was to develop "high throughput" screening tests that enabled it to quickly analyze nearly 500,000 compounds for resveratrol- like activity. The rapid-fire winnowing led to several potent molecules that promise to replicate resveratrol's health benefits at doses hundreds of times smaller than are required with the natural substance. These two standard steps in drug development often take several years; Sirtris completed them in a little over a year.
Meanwhile, hoping to get an early indication of efficacy against disease, the company formulated a resveratrol-based drug, dubbed 501, to begin the tests in diabetic patients. Westphal cautions that the drug is likely to be a product for only a few indications - Sirtris's more potent medicines will probably have much broader applications. Still, in animal tests, 501's proprietary formulation gets more than ten times as much resveratrol into the bloodstream as do dietary supplements containing equal amounts of it, says the company.
The 501 trial's results should be available this year - if Sirtris decides to disclose them. So far the drug has shown only mild side effects. The main one has been occasional nausea among people taking it on an empty stomach. One reason for that could be that the orally administered liquid drug tastes awful; Sirtris hopes a new cherry-flavored version will go down easier.
Of all the decisions Westphal has made - reject the hype but not too much; which medicine flavors are least nauseating - the biggest may prove to be simply speed. Sirtris's rapid push into clinical trials, the costliest stage of drug development, is likely to force it to raise more money soon. One option: license drug rights to big pharma concerns. But those who reach into pharma's deep pockets tend to get entangled in its bureaucratic strings. Major decisions on developing a drug, for instance, must go through layers of managers.
Article Produced By
David Stipp, Fortune
https://money.cnn.com/2007/01/18/magazines/fortune/Live_forever.fortune/index2.htm
Posted by
Chuck Reynolds
