Tag Archives: Chemicals

Innovative Drug Discovery Business, Biosortia Pharmaceuticals, Lands Two Health Care Veterans

Kurt Dieck formerly SVP of Strategy and Business Execution at Cardinal Health, will lead early stage drug discovery business at Biosortia Pharmaceuticals. Dieck was named President and CEO in November 2012 and has quickly identified other key executives, including Dr. Guy Carter, former Natural Product head at Wyeth Pharmaceuticals, as his Chief Science Officer. In conjunction, other collaboration partners have joined the team, including NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration), NCI (National Cancer Institute) and key universities, to strategically accelerate the development of novel drug leads in the therapeutic areas of cancer, infectious diseases, inflammation and neurological disorders. Biosortia Pharmaceuticals has seen promising early results with dozens of novel compounds having already been requested, and are under evaluation with NCI and Eli Lilly.

Dieck has spent nearly 30 years in healthcare, including 18 years at Arthur Andersen as a global equity partner and then 10 years with Cardinal Health, a Fortune 20 public company, as a senior executive; there he worked with a broad spectrum of partners, including brand pharmaceutical manufacturers, throughout the supply chain. Dr. Guy Carter has over 30 years of experience working in pharmaceutical R&D, primarily in the discovery and development of microbial natural products. He previously was the leader of natural products drug discovery at Wyeth Research, as head of the Chemical Technologies Department.

“Kurt and Guy make a great team. Their complementary Pharma experiences and backgrounds create great opportunities to accelerate Biosortia’s objective to become the premier, aquatic natural products company with a primary focus in drug discovery,” says Ross Youngs, Biosortia’s Founder and Chairman. “Kurt and Guy bring a wealth of research and business experience along with deep industry relationships in building successful Pharma partnerships. Everyone involved with this young biotech is excited about the future.”

Industry observers have commented that late-stage R&D pipelines are not providing Pharma with the desired revenue growth the market is expecting. Therefore, large Pharma is evolving the way it performs R&D in order to optimize efficiency and to boost patent cliff defenses. These changes require shifting from relying solely on in-house chemistry-based R&D to acquiring and licensing external technologies and natural products based compounds in various stages of development. Biosortia’s ability to supply novel, highly active and potent compounds with drug-like characteristics will increase the productivity and success rate for Pharma as well as reduce the overall cost of the discovery process. The cost to discover, develop and launch a new drug is estimated to reach nearly $3B per drug by 2015. Biosortia’s business model is designed specifically to support Pharma’s needs.

“With nearly unlimited microorganisms (3.7 nonillion), the aquatic environment and its consortia represent an extraordinary opportunity…a new frontier, to access extremely potent and chemically diverse secondary metabolites with drug-like properties with unique mechanisms of action never researched before,” said Dieck. In describing the opportunity, Dieck goes on to say, “Biosortia is on the cutting edge of natural product discovery
and has the capabilities to deliver on its aspiration. Our powerful natural products research team, led by Dr. Guy Carter, in partnership with NOAA’s Dr. Peter Moeller, a leader in aquatic natural products research, has the experience and know-how to decipher the complex unexplored environment in a very efficient manner leveraging all the current state of the art instrumentation. The need for more efficient and effective approaches to drug discovery has never been more important. Biosortia’s innovative technologies, deep research skills and key relationships will efficiently provide thousands of unique natural products as candidates for drug discovery at a time when Pharma is in critical need for “high quality shots on goal.”

“Aquatic microbial consortia are a rich source of metabolically active organisms including microalgae, bacteria, fungi and their secondary metabolites,” states Carter. “Owing to the competitive nature of their habitat, chemical investigations of microbial consortia reveal unique structurally diversified natural products that are responsible for signaling and self-defense that have potential as therapeutics with novel mechanisms of action. Since they have been pre-optimized by nature, these compounds are typically closer to a drug candidate than a synthetic lead, thus requiring less optimization and shorter time when found as ‘hits’ in screening programs.”

The team has also focused on agreements with strategic collaboration partners as vital components to the strategy. Biosortia has recently entered into several collaboration agreements with NOAA, Analyticon and exclusive harvesting relationships, just to name a few. Several others will be advanced by the end of January. Biosortia’s cooperative research and development agreement (CRADA) with NOAA’s Center for Human Health Risk at Hollings Marine Laboratory provides a 5-year framework for research and development regarding the analysis and purification of novel bioactive compounds. According to NOAA’s Technology Partnerships Office, “Success will result in the commercial development of new and unique chemical compounds from the sea which have benefits to human health, either through disease prevention or new treatments for disease.”

Dr. Peter Moeller, NOAA’s Research Scientist who leads the Toxins Natural Products Program stated after analyzing fractions of Biosortia’s biomass, “Coupling NOAA’s mission of characterizing toxins affecting environmental and/or human health with Biosortia’s drug discovery focus turns one man’s toxin into another’s chemotherapeutic. The microorganisms analyzed in the Biosortia biomass identified more unique activity than I have seen in my 30 year career. The volumes achieved from a single harvest delivered an equivalent of 30 years of accumulation. This could materially change the landscape for natural products drug discovery research.”

As of December 31, 2012, Biosortia has identified more than 30 bioactive candidate compounds (hits) from a fresh water eutrophic lake consortium. Therapeutic areas of focus include treatments for cancer, infectious diseases, inflammation and neurological disorders. In addition, more than a dozen of its patent protected compounds are in initial evaluation stage within Eli Lilly’s Open Innovation Drug Discovery Program.

Dieck states, “Looking forward, it is with great optimism. We have a great team built around mutual respect, deep experience, and a desire to succeed and make a difference. We are aligning with the right partners and collaborators to execute our strategy with speed and discipline to provide Pharma with much high quality & diverse compounds vs. “me-too” drugs than they have had in the past 10 years. We are excited about what this company can accomplish, not only for its shareholders but also for the millions of people who have been diagnosed with various forms of chronic diseases who are looking for Pharma to identify better ways to help them extend their lives or live a more productive life. Biosortia can play a big role in identifying compounds that can help Pharma achieve these goals. I am looking forward to the challenge and opportunity to build an industry leading drug discovery company.”

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About Biosortia Pharmaceuticals http://www.biosortia.com/: Biosortia Pharmaceuticals is a division of Algaeventure Systems (AVS). AVS is privately held company and are the inventors of the biomass harvesting technology. Biosortia has a proven and unique ability to obtain unculturable aquatic microorganism consortia from the natural environment in unprecedented quantities that allows its research team to perform direct study of vast quantities of new natural products (NPs), the foundation of most anti-infective agents such as antibiotics for the treatment of bacterial infections. Over 76% of cancer drugs are derived in some manner from NP.

If you’d like more information about the announcement or the company or to schedule an interview with Kurt Dieck, please call:

David Coho
Tel. 614-636-4850
Cell Phone: 614-325-9804
Email: dcoho@biosortia.com

 

The 3rd ISDC Tri-Annual International Conference and Exposition on Soaps, Detergents and Cosmetics to be Held at Mumbai from December 11-13, 2011 Under the Leadership of Mr. Nadir B Godrej and Dr B R Gaikwad

The event is organized jointly by the Indian Home & Personal Care Industry Association and The Oil Technologists’ Association of India, Western Zone with the active support of CHEMEXCIL under the Ministry of Commerce & Industry, Government of India.

Mumbai, India, Wednesday – December 07, 2011 — The event is organized jointly by the Indian Home & Personal Care Industry Association (IHPCIA) and The Oil Technologists’ Association of India, Western Zone (OTAI-WZ) with the active support of CHEMEXCIL (Basic Chemicals, Pharmaceuticals & Cosmetics Export Promotion Council) under the Ministry of Commerce & Industry, Government of India.

The theme of the conference is “Dynamics of Change” and will discuss issues related to Sustainability, Markets, Innovations and Industry issues. A technical session of the conference will also provide information on new palm based surfactants which have a neutral carbon footprint and offer a cost effective alternative to petroleum based surfactants used by the HPC industry today.

The Rs. 2,00,000 crore HPC market has witnessed steady growth for laundry products at around 8% and significant growth for the Personal Care products at around 18-20% per year offering dynamic market opportunities. From the volume perspective the HPC industry has 6.3 million tons of products. In comparison the Chinese HPC industry volume is 8.2 million tons of which laundry liquids are around 3.3 million tons.

The theme of the conference “Dynamics of Change” will focus on issues relating to sustainability, markets, innovations and industry issues. There is a technical session on palm based derivatives which are carbon neutral and offer interesting options for formulators. Sixteen eminent speakers from the FMCG industry will present their views. This year global majors like Unilever, Huntsman, Clariant, BASF, Stepan and Akzo will share their plans for participating in the growing Indian market.

There will be time for networking during the International Association meet and Business Leaders meet and aConference dinner. The Exposition will have exhibits by FMCG and Global players in the HPC industry and CHEMEXCIL will be hosting a Reverse Buyer-Sellers Meet (RSBM) wherein global buyers will participate to explore Indian markets.

Delegates from Japan, China, Taiwan, Malaysia, Indonesia, Middle East, Europe and USA will interact with their industry counter party in India to strengthen business and commerce and share information on industry related issues.

The opening of the HPC industry in India offers new opportunity for consumers and challenges for manufacturers. There are concerns regarding the domestic tariff structures which can negate growth, GHS and chemical classification and opportunities through innovations which focus on sustainable carbon neutral products from Palm Oil. China has demonstrated that laundry liquids which are environmentally friendly and has reduced requirements for Energy and Water in washing. IHPCIA – Your Network & Your Voice is committed to addressing industry issues and developing solutions for healthy living and quality lifestyle.

We often emulate the China growth story and want Mumbai to be like Shanghai. In the past 10 years, the Chinese HPC industry has grown in volume and value by over 26% of that in India reflecting changing trends and people’s aspirations as incomes grow.

Sharing and networking with the international HPC Association will enable Indian consumers to benefit from the experiences of other countries and be on-line in this information age.

India’s importance as a large consumer market with a growth potential was recognized at the recently held AOSDAC conference in Beijing in November this year and Mr. Sanjay Trivedi of IHPCIA will be the chairperson for the steering committee for the 9thAOSDAC meeting to beheld in India in 2013. For further details please log onto http://www.isdcconference.com

Press & Media Contact:
Mitesh M Kapadia
Sentinel Public Relations Pvt Ltd / Sentinel Advertising Services
B-603, Samajdeep,
Near Bhanu Park/Seasons Restaurant
Adukia Road, Off S V Road
Kandivli (W), Mumbai 400 067. INDIA
Tel: (91 22) 28625131/32. Cel: +91 98205 03876
Fax: (91 22) 28625133
mitesh@publicrelationindia.com
http://www.publicrelationindia.com
http://www.isdcconference.com

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