nor the internet
government took MY money - paid a private company to pave a road - and i have to credit my every accomplishment in life to government because i drove on it once
along with all the welfare queen leeches that have accomplished nothing
libtards are idiots - I PAID FOR THE ROAD FOOL
The evil venture capital industry :)
THE SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
September 12, 1988
Edition: FINAL
Section: BUSINESS
Page: C1
Topics:
Index Terms:
BUSINESS
TECHNOLOGY
BEGIN
BAY AREA
Biotech Firms Open New Era in Bay Area
Author: SABIN RUSSELL, Chronicle Staff Writer
Article Text:
A new generation of biotechnology startups is taking root in the Bay Area, nurtured by the ever-hopeful venture capital industry.
In this region alone, at least nine major biotechnology ventures have been launched within the past two years, fueled by more than $44 million in equity investment. But unlike the first generation of biotechnology firms, which were created to fulfill the broad promise of genetic engineering technology, new companies are becoming as specialized as the multiple branches of medicine they will ultimately serve.
The diversity of these biotechnology boutiques reflects the amazing advances currently pouring out of university research labs. For example:
— Glycomed Inc. of Hayward is attempting to develop a new class of pharmaceuticals based on biologically active carbohydrates, rather than more traditional proteins and peptides.
— Gilead Sciences Inc. of Foster City is pursuing a new branch of molecular biology known as “genetic targeting.” In theory, bits of synthetic DNA can be tailored to neutralize specific genes that cause cancer or allow viruses to reproduce.
— Insite Vision Inc. of Alameda has garnered $10 million in venture capital to produce a new form of eye-drop that can hold less toxic doses of medicines on the eye surface for hours.
— Athena Neurosciences of San Carlos is exploiting new developments in neurobiology to develop diagnostic tests and therapies for Alzheimer’s disease.
— COR Therapeutics of Palo Alto is exploring potential new drugs that regulate the health of blood vessels and may lead to treatments for atherosclerosis.
“Ten years ago, there were only three or four venture capitalists that would back a biotechnology firm,” said Brook Byers, a partner in the venture capital fund of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. “Today there are at least 50. It’s very fashionable.”
KEY PLAYERS
As the Genentechs, Chirons and Cetuses of the industry finally begin to bring their long-promised products to market, the scientists who toiled in those company labs are popping up as key players in these new biotech businesses.
Janakiraman Ramachandran, formerly senior scientist and director of protein biochemistry at Genentech, was named vice president of research at Neurex Corp., a Menlo Park neurobiology startup that is researching the chemicals by which nerve cells communicate. Mark Matteucci, also a former Genentech senior scientist, is now senior research scientist at Gilead. Brian Atwood, former director of a group that built a genetic copying machine known as PCR at Cetus, has emerged as co-founder of Glycomed.
But most of the key technologists forming these new companies are academicians, who in many cases were recruited specifically by venture capitalists.
Athena Neurosciences, which has raised $13.9 million from venture capitalists since it opened its doors in October 1986, was largely the brainchild of Kevin Kinsella, a venture capitalist who scoured the university community for 18 months to identify the key players in the burgeoning field of neurobiology.
Kinsella persuaded Harvard Medical School researcher Dr. Dennis Selkoe, a renowned expert on Alzheimer’s disease, to co-found the company with Lawrence Fritz, then a senior scientist at California Biotechnology.
`A LEAP OF FAITH’
“It took a leap of faith that these new techniques would lead to breakthroughs,” said John Groom, a onetime president of the international division of pharmaceutical firm Smith Kline & French, who was recruited to become Athena president and chief executive.
Although the cause of Alzheimer’s disease remains a mystery, researchers are zeroing in on some of the biological symptoms such as the formation of protein deposits called amyloid plaques outside the victims’ brain cells. And Athena has already applied for a patent on a diagnostic test for the disease.
“A blood test could screen for the first biochemical signs of the disease,” said Fritz. “Then you try to retard it for as long as possible.”
Because substances needed to treat Alzheimer’s disease must pass through the so-called “blood-brain barrier,” a network of vessels that protects the brain from foreign substances, Athena is also embarked on a major research effort to find ways of penetrating it.
Here Athena has lots of competitors. Among them are Alkermes, founded in Cambridge, Mass., last year with $8 million in venture capital backing; Cephalon, a West Chester, Pa., startup with $5.5 million; and Neurex of Menlo Park, with $6.4 million.
Neurex co-founder Thomas Barton, a New York lawyer who became intrigued with the technology, said his firm is targeting a range of neurological disorders. Founded by Barton and two Stanford neuroscientists, doctors Jack Barchas and Roland Ciaranello, the company’s research focuses on the chemical substances that are passed between nerve cells in the lightning-fast process of “cellular communications.”
DECODED MESSAGES
The company hopes to decode some of these messages, leading to the production of molecules that could suppress appetites, treat disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease and cystic fibrosis, and control pain.
Barton believes that the first generation of biotechnology companies are based primarily on a production technology - the cloning and expression of genes to produce proteins. The new generation, he said, is based on new analytical techniques that are revealing what each protein can produce. “The body is composed of a huge mosaic of substances that control its functions,” he said. “We now have the capacity to find out what those substances are.”
Research shows that proteins are not the only biologically active substances at work in the body. Glycomed, which has raised $2.2 million from six different venture capital funds, is betting it can create “designer carbohydrates” that regulate cell growth and tissue development.
“We’re going to be a major pharmaceutical company based on bioactive carbohydrates,” said Glycomed chief executive Dr. Alan Timms, who left his post as president of research and development at G.D. Searle to head the year-old venture.
Because carbohydrates serve multiple functions, Timms believes his company may develop a broad range of drugs to fight inflammation, infection, immune disorders and to treat cardiovascular disease.
Two other Bay Area startups are focusing on heart disease. COR Therapeutics raised $2 million from Sutter Hill Ventures and Robertson Colman & Stephens to bring together a high-powered team of cardiologists from the University of California at San Francisco. David Phillips, a UCSF expert on blood platelets, is a COR co-founder and its chief scientist. Fellow UCSF doctors Lewis Williams and Shaun Coughlin, experts in the study of growth factors that may play a role in the prevention or treatment of athersclerosis, serve as scientific advisers.
RANGE OF MALADIES
New Enterprise Associates and Hillman Co. have pooled $2.5 million in venture capital to back Cholestech Corp. of Hayward, a new company targeting a range of maladies caused by excessive buildup of fats in the cardiovascular system. Among the founders is Gary Hewett, who headed a diagnostic unit at Genelabs, itself a 4-year-old biotechnology firm developing drugs based on monoclonal antibody technologies.
Judy O’Shea, a venture capitalist who is acting as chief executive, said her firm is attempting to build diagnostic equipment to detect five different forms of blood fat disorders and to develop compounds to treat each of them.
Analysts say the most intriguing long-shot among the new Bay Area biotech startups is Gilead Sciences, which has raised $2 million from Menlo Ventures of Menlo Park. Founder Michael Riordan, a 30-year-old physician with an MBA from Harvard, became hooked on a new technology called “genetic targeting” while a researcher at Johns Hopkins University.
The promise of the year-old firm recently attracted to its board of directors Donald Rumsfeld, a former secretary of Defense and onetime president of G.D. Searle & Co.
Gilead’s technology targets specific genes within a virus or cell, sending in tiny bits of genetic material that can block the gene from producing unwanted proteins. In theory, the technique could turn off the “bad genes” that cause inherited disorders, block cancer-causing “oncogenes,” and trip up the ability of the AIDS virus to replicate itself. “It’s a matter of finding the Achilles’ heel of the genes - the best place to hit,” said Riordan.
HUMAN TRIALS
Although the techniques have shown promise in the test tube, Riordan said it is “inappropriate” to reveal when his company expects to begin human clinical trials of its drugs.
Yet another startup, Palo Alto-based Protein Design Labs, is using computer modeling techniques to design antibodies to treat specific diseases. Founded with $4 million from Robertson, Colman & Stephens, the company is tinkering with the structure of antibodies used to suppress the immune system of transplant patients. By giving these antibodies, normally produced by mice, the characteristics of human antibodies, they can survive longer in the human blood stream.
The newest of Bay Area biotechnology firms is Biospan, a secretive startup founded last May with $1.6 million in venture capital backing from Crosspoint Ventures and Alpha Partners.
Headed by former City of Hope researcher Brian Clarke and University of California at San Diego immunologist Bernard Lerch, the company is believed to be developing drugs to treat disorders of the immune system such as diabetes and rheumatoid arthritis.
Crosspoint venture capitalist Fred Dotzler, who is acting as chief executive of the Redwood City company, said it makes sense for venture capitalists to bet half a million dollars on a promising biotech idea, but he is leery of some of the larger deals being funded. “I don’t mind investing in long shots,” he said. “But I don’t want to bet a lot of money.”
CHART
NEW CROP OF BIOTECH COMPANIES
Founded since August, 1986
Venture
capital backing
Name Location Field (in millions)
Athena
Neurosciences San Carlos Alzheimer’s
disease $13.9
Biospan Redwood City Immunology 1.6
Cholestech Hayward Cardiovascular
disease 2.5
COR
Therapeutics Palo Alto Cardiovascular
disease 2.0
Gilead
Sciences Foster City Gene blockers 2.0
Glycomed Hayward Bioactive carbo
hydrates 2.2
Insite
Vision Alameda Ophthalmological
drugs 10.0
Neurex Menlo Park Neurobiology 6.4
Protein
Design Labs Palo Alto Autoimmune diseases 4.0
Source: Chronicle research
Caption:
From left, John Klock, Alan Timms and Brian Atwood of Glycomed, with a model of a carbohydrate molecule / BY MICHAEL MALONEY/THE CHRONICLE
PHOTO, CHART: SEE END OF TEXT
This thing is going to have legs if Mittens gets his sh!t together.
And he better.
government did NOT dig the hole so I give no credit for poopin