Friday, June 13, 2008

Chymic applies MIT tech to cancer

By Ryan McBride

Two life sciences executives have joined forces and combined their backgrounds from biotech industry stalwart Biogen Idec Inc. in Cambridge and other companies to launch a drug-development startup with technology from MIT.

Chymic Therapeutics Inc., led by CEO Barbara Wallner and COO Bob Newman, plans to apply chemistry developed through $8 million in grants at MIT to make treatments for deadly tumors and other diseases. The Boston startup is among several young biotech firms in Massachusetts with technology to form new chemical compounds, or new chemical entities (NCEs), from existing drugs.

Wallner and Newman, who met while working at Ziopharm Oncology Inc. in Charlestown, have begun in recent months to give investors a first peek at their technology and business strategy to commercialize new drugs discovered with the MIT chemistry.

“There are so many cancer drugs that are failures because ‘A’ we don’t know where to use them and ‘B’ we don’t know how to use them,” said Newman, adding that Chymic’s drugs address both those issues.

Chymic (pronounced ky-mick) uses technology to attach molecules that damage the DNA of diseased cells to compounds that inhibit certain proteins important to the survival of those cells. A person could imagine the drugs to be shaped like dumbbells, with one end intended to break the DNA while the other blocks proteins from repairing the damage. The intended result is rapid death of diseased cells.

With plans to raise $20 million in Series A venture capital this year, Wallner and Newman plan to begin human clinical trials next year for a drug to treat prostate cancer and another drug to treat breast and ovarian tumors. The global market for the drugs to treat prostate and ovarian cancer is more than $700 million, they said. The drugs are to be taken with approved chemotherapy treatments.

The chemistry behind Chymic’s molecules was developed by MIT professor John Essignmann and a researcher in his lab named Robert Croy, both of whom now serve as scientific advisers to the firm. Newman said the MIT lab has garnered $8 million in grants to develop the science. 

Other local startups with technology to churn out novel chemical drugs have done well lately. Lexington-based Concert Pharmaceuticals Inc., which creates new compounds by replacing hydrogen atoms with deuterium atoms, raised $37 million in a Series C round of VC and Avila Therapeutics Inc. of Waltham, which hasn’t disclosed its drug-discovery methods, raised more than $11 million in a Series A round, both in April.

Wallner is a former Biogen scientist who cofounded Point Therapeutics Inc., a former Bay State biotech that merged with Dara BioSciences Inc., of Raleigh, N.C. in February.