Monday, March 31, 2008

Trine Pharmaceuticals to close operations

By Ryan McBride

After a long run, and with a biotech bigwig at the helm, Trine Pharmaceuticals Inc. of Newton is closing its doors because of financial problems and lackluster results from a clinical trial of its lead drug.

Trine came up short in a Phase 2b clinical trial of its drug crofelemer, derived from a medicinal plant found in South America, as a treatment for a type of irritable-bowel syndrome. In February the firm terminated its license to crofelemer from Napo Pharmaceuticals Inc., of South San Francisco, and informed Napo it would wind down operations this month, according to Napo.

Founded in the early 1990s, Trine tried to reinvent itself in 2001 when biotech industry luminary Mark Skaletsky took over as CEO and chairman. Skaletsky led the firm, formerly known as Essential Therapeutics Inc., through a transition to private status in 2003 after it had been delisted from the Nasdaq and had filed for bankruptcy, according to regulatory filings. Skaletsky did not return calls this week.

For Skaletsky, the closure of Trine is a dark note on an otherwise brilliant career in biotech. He was president and CEO of GelTex Pharmaceuticals Inc., of Waltham, which Cambridge-based Genzyme Corp. acquired for more than $1 billion in 2000. From 1999 to 2001 he served as chairman of the Biotechnology Industry Organization, or BIO, in Washington, D.C., and he had been president and COO of large biotech Biogen Inc. (now Biogen Idec Inc.) of Cambridge earlier in his career.