Friday, September 12, 2008

Synageva leaves Atlanta for Waltham

By Stephen DeSantis

Now reborn under a new name, the decade-old biotech Synageva BioPharma Corp. — formerly called AviGenics — has brought in a new CEO and set up shop in the Bay State, moving its headquarters to Waltham from Atlanta, Ga. In June, it received a well-timed $7 million, the final tranche of a $17 million round, which closed last year.

The “refocus” came at a critical point for the company, said Sanj Patel, Synageva’s new CEO.

He stated that the company needed time to perfect its protein manufacturing technology and to establish its pipeline. That pipeline now includes two drugs in midstage clinical trials and a third entering Phase 1 safety studies.

“Over the last 10 years they’ve worked hard to take this from the lab into the clinic. Now we really need to focus on the commercialization of the company,” said Patel.

Synageva believes it has picked the right man for the job. Patel was Genzyme Corp.’s former head of sales, marketing and commercial operations for the U.S. He led the company’s launch of Myozyme for the treatment of Pompe disease.

A large investor community, talented executives and a cluster of potential licensing partners were the biggest factors in coming to Boston, said Marc Corrado, the company’s chief business officer.

For now, the company’s R&D and manufacturing facility will remain in Atlanta, he said.

Synageva is focused on new oncology and autoimmune treatments using monoclonal antibodies and cytokines-based drugs. Its most advanced stage products, however, are follow-on biologics (or biogenerics). That market segment is waiting to explode, experts say. By 2010, about $11 billion worth of biologic drug sales are at risk due to patent expiration, reports London-based market research firm Business Insights Ltd.

Avigenics was started in 1996 by Robert Ivarie, head of the genetics department at the University of Georgia. Ivarie developed a process to make proteins using egg whites — essentially transforming live chickens into bioreactors. With the help of a delivery virus, a hen is injected with a human gene containing the genetic instructions to make a protein. The protein is simply extracted from the eggs the hens lay.