|
From the 'Financial Times', 16 February 2004 CBT looks to funding for trials after rats lose weight Cambridge Biotechnology (CBT) is to seek more funding after obese rats that were given one of its experimental drugs lost 10 per cent body weight in a week. The private drug discovery group said it would look to take the treatment into human trials before the end of next year. Obesity is increasingly seen as an epidemic in affluent countries and any successful drug treatments could tap into a multi-billion pound market. Roche's Xenical is the market leader with yearly sales of about $400m (£212m), although Alizyme has a latestage experimental drug that appears to show fewer nasty side-effects. CBT raised £6.4m in its first round of funding in July 2002 from Merlin Biosciences, the Cambridge Gateway Fund, Johnson & Johnson Development and Northern Venture Managers. Merlin, Cambridge Gateway and J&J each hold a 25 per cent stake. CBT said investors had expressed willingness to fund the obesity drug into human trials, an expensive process. There is no guarantee that drugs that are successful in animal trials will be successful in human ones. Industry analysts generally do not place any value on pre-clinical drugs at listed companies. CBT claims to be the first company to have produced a molecule, known as a leptin receptor agonist, that can combat obesity. It said 10 per cent weight loss in a week would be too rapid for a human and it would need to slow this down. The drug has also shown indications that it could continue to be taken to keep weight down. CBT was founded in 2001 by scientists from the Parke-Davis Neuroscience research centre, after it was taken over by Pfizer.
|
