Pharmaceuticals
Company targets coma patients with compound
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A small Newton company has launched clinical trials for a compound designed to treat patients who are in deep comas.
Officials of NeuroHealing Pharmaceuticals Inc. have launched Phase II trials among young adults, most of whom have been involved in serious vehicle accidents.
Though principals acknowledge that a single report does not presage success, they say they have received early data showing that one patient has shown significant progress.
“A patient in our Argentina trial was treated and within days he came out of a coma,” said Daniel Katzman, president of the year-old company.
“It’s a good way to start the trial because it’s rare that a person in his condition responds so quickly. This is just one case, though, so we will continue to monitor the others involved.”
The launch of trials marks the company’s “transition” from business plan to hospital bed. Last spring it won the Harvard Biotechnology Club business plan competition. Now it has a compound and is involved in preliminary human trials.
The prize was just $5,000, and most capital is supplied by the company’s executives. NeuroHealing is currently seeking investment funding.
Industry figures show that 1.5 million Americans each year sustain traumatic brain injury. About 50,000 go into comas lasting at least two weeks. There are few pharmaceutical therapies to hasten the return to consciousness after a traumatic brain injury.
To address this situation, NeuroHealing is developing a compound it calls NH001. This is a compound that acts on the dopamine pathways in the brain and is intended to promote consciousness in severely injured individuals.
A key to the technology is neuroplasticity, the state in which “good” parts of the brain take over the functions of “bad” parts.
The company has chosen medical centers in Argentina and Israel in which to carry out their initial trials. If data is promising, larger trials will be ordered in accordance with guidelines required by the Food and Drug Administration.
“The potential market is large and currently void of any approved products,” said Neal Farber, CEO of NeuroHealing. “This patient population is concentrated in neurorehabilitation centers and skilled nursing homes, which makes the market fairly easy for us to reach.”
The management team is a blend of younger Argentine researchers and veteran Cambridge executives. Those pushing the science are Katzman and Esteban Fridman, 30-ish natives of La Plata, which is near Buenos Aires. They met at the University of La Plata. Katzman studied neuroscience and Fridman focused on medicine.
Before founding NeuroHealing, Katzman served as vice president of business development at Oridion Medical Ltd. Fridman, chief medical officer, is a certified neurologist in Argentina.
Farber, meanwhile, is former CEO of Collgard Biopharmaceuticals and has held senior development positions at Biogen, Cubist Pharmaceuticals and T Cell Sciences.
Board chairman Elkan Gamzu has more than three decades of experience. He has worked in discovery at Hoffmann-La Roche, in clinical management and drug development while at Warner-Lambert, and as CEO of Cambridge Neuroscience Inc.
In 2001 and 2002, Gamzu was an executive at Millennium Pharmaceuticals Inc. Katzman, Farber and Gamzu share the experience of having worked for Israeli tech companies. Company officials say that if trials are successful, the firm will launch trials to test their compounds on stroke and Parkinson’s disease.
Reprinted with permission. © 2004 Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc.
Reprinted with permission. © 2004: Cambridge Newspapers Ltd. All rights reserved throughout the world.