Pace of iCo unmatched by biotech competitors

Gillian Shaw
Vancouver Sun

February 8, 2006

It was only a few short months ago that Andrew Rae and John Clement launched their latest biotech company iCo Therapeutics Inc. from a table at Starbucks.

In less than a year they have catapulted from their coffee shop office to headquarters in downtown Vancouver and more importantly, inked their first deal to take an oncology drug and repurpose it to treat diabetes-related blindness and other eye diseases.

ICo expects to sign its second in-licensing deal in the first quarter of this year, accelerating through milestones at a pace unmatched by traditional biotech companies.

It is following a lead set by Aspreva Pharmaceuticals, the Victoria-based company that has virtually written the textbook on how to successfully repurpose existing drugs and has been rewarded for its success by investors who have driven its stock up from its IPO price of $13.68 last spring to a high of $32.04.

It's biotech lite, the latest trend in the industry that is seeing enterprising scientists and management teams search out drugs that are already in use or close to getting approval for treating one disease and targeting them to a different disease or condition.

"The venture capital community both in Canada and the U.S. is essentially looking at clinical stage developments," said Rae who was at this week's BioPartnering North America conference in Vancouver that attracted 900 delegates and almost 70 representatives of major pharmaceutical companies. "The old model is effectively dead, finding a professor, developing a drug and taking five years to get to the clinic."

The model shaves years off a high risk life cycle that can have biotechs bleeding cash for upwards of 15 years before revenues start to flow in.

Rae calls it a "risk reduction strategy," and it's one that is already paying off with the signing on of world renowned authority in immunology and ophthalmology Professor Santa Jeremy Ono, currently the GlaxoSmithKline professor of biomedical sciences, University College, University of London.