Tag: pharma

akampion Meets… Martin Austin, Founder & Managing Director of TransformRx and Director of Alma Bio Therapeutics

 

akampion: When we first met, you were with Paul Capital Partners and very actively scouting the European biotech scene for potential deals. Since then, you have founded TransformRx and now you are also a Director at Alma Bio Therapeutics – how did that come about?

Martin Austin: I left Paul Capital because in my view, the market for royalty funds was beginning to narrow and only companies with sufficient revenues could really fit into the investment model. At the same time, the market trend moved more towards development and R&D. So I was wondering how to address these developments, and so I eventually acquired the Swiss subsidiary of Paul Capital and founded TransformRx GmbH.

Since I know operations in the pharma and the investment industries very well, the idea was to offer financial intermediation services. How can a biotech get money? How to invest in biotech?

 

akampion: We definitely believe there must have been a market for financial intermediation in the biotech sector – there still is!

Martin Austin: Indeed. But in addition, I also had clients calling up to get support in business development and commercialization, since I have been working in that space for a long time. So I took on these projects and had a request to develop a my commercial BD course with CELforPharma in Brussels into a format for a business development course at the University of Basel. It is part of a Master´s program at the European Center of Pharmaceutical Medicine ECPM which offers a range of training courses in the field of drug development, including leadership and biobusiness development. And then I had an invitation to run a course in China, which I have been running annually since 2007.

 

akampion: So one project led to another…

Martin Austin: Yes – and it continues! I received similar requests from France and elsewhere which led to my first book on Business Development in the Pharmaceutical Industry being published.The next book is out this year, by the way, and will focus on commercializing IP in healthcare. Just to give you some background, I have also been advising various technology transfer offices for a several years and this sparked the idea for the second book.

 

akampion: And now you´re also with Alma Bio Therapeutics, a company developing novel antiinflammatory drugs to treat Crohn´s disease and Ulcerative Colitis.

Martin Austin: Right. The CEO is a former “student” of mine. She contacted me because in Israel, the conditions for biotech companies are not very favorable, so the idea was to transfer IP and the company from Israel to Europe. Alma, for example, has a product licensed from the Weizmann Institute. The company is now situated at the Basel incubator and is looking for further funding from angel investors and VCs. The lead product is a synthetic gene sequence encouraging the body to produce a protein called HSP70. HSP70 acts as a transient signal to T-regulatory cells in the immune system which re-harmonises the body’s responses to inflammation. The initial mouse experiments have yielded very good results, so we have a mammalian proof-of-principle – and the manufacturing is already in place as well. I am very glad to be part of the company´s team because I believe that Alma as a start-up company is very well set. So we are ready for investment!

akampion: Thank you, Martin! We will keep our fingers crossed for Alma´s financing and hope to be able to read your new book soon.

Food for Thought: In Search of Faster Cures

Last month, The Wharton School of the University of Pennsilvania dedicated a special edition of their prestigious Knowledge@Wharton newsletter to the biopharmaceutical industry. Most importantly, the authors dealt with the pressing question how the industry may continue to develop innovative drugs – and get them approved faster.

Summarizing the current challenges, the report states that “no one doubts that the drug industry’s traditional model for developing new cures is badly broken. Fewer exciting new medicines are reaching patients these days, even as spending on research and development has risen and blockbuster drugs that have long been the backbone of pharmaceutical profits have lost their patent protection. A widening gap divides the discovery of promising new laboratory compounds from the ability to turn them into innovative therapies. A similar gap separates recent scientific gains in understanding genes from the creation of new drugs that use this knowledge to fight disease.”

The report tackles key elements of the ongoing transformation of the biopharmaceutical industry, ranging from novel drug development approaches such as personalized medicine, open-source research, pricing policies, and the latest efforts at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to speed up regulatory processes. One of the most conclusive observations is that partnering and strategic alliances are becoming more important than ever to meet the requirements of the changing pharma industry. However, despite identifying the crucial pieces of the puzzle, it remains to be seen how both established and new biopharmaceutical companies can cope with the challenges of a transforming industry.

Food for Thought: How Bad is Big Pharma? An Analysis of Public Perception in the U.S.

Despite growing complaints about the negative reputation of the pharmaceutical industry, little fundamental research data has been available on the topic so far.

A detailed analysis by George P.  Sillup and Stephen J. Porth published in the International Journal of Pharmaceutical and Healthcare Marketing supports the evidence. Following an audit of the top five U.S. newspapers over two years (2004-2005), Sillup and Porth concluded that the overall coverage of the pharmaceutical industry was primarily negative (69.5% and 60.1% in 2004 and 2005, respectively) and that “pharmaceutical companies need to take action to address the negative impression about them.”

In our view, the findings underline the importance of a sustainable, long-term communication strategy targeting all relevant stakeholders, including patients and the general public.

Further details and the full article (pdf) can be found at the Emerald Insight website:  http://bit.ly/axb8X0

Source: George P.  Sillup and Stephen J. Porth in the International Journal of Pharmaceutical and Healthcare Marketing, Vol. 2 No. 3, 2008, pp. 163-180