OT - some background on conjuchem CJC on toronto
Interim CEO left semi-retirement to lead firm's rebound
LEONARD ZEHR BIOTECHNOLOGY REPORTER
Tuesday, October 14, 2003
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After ending a 32-year career as a biotech and pharmaceutical executive, the last thing Jacques Lapointe envisaged was getting back on the management treadmill this year.
"Once you get on one of these big jobs, you're on, and that was never my intention," recalls the 56-year-old former president of BioChem Pharma Inc., who faded gracefully into semi-retirement with $9-million worth of stock options when Shire Pharmaceuticals Group PLC swallowed BioChem two years ago.
But all that began to change last November.
Mr. Lapointe, a director at troubled Montreal-based drug developer ConjuChem Inc., agreed to step into the chairman's post largely out of a sense of loyalty after a management shakeup and clinical testing failures with two flagship drugs.
"With a 40-cent stock price [down from $8 at the beginning of 2002] and a technology where nothing much positive was happening, the board called off its search to find an outside CEO," he said.
Almost immediately, Mr. Lapointe cut spending, trimmed staff to less than 50 from 70 and turned ConjuChem's approach to research and development upside-downside.
"Our strategy had been one of breadth, where we were attaching our technology platform to a lot of drugs, hoping one would work. Over the past nine months, we've moved to a strategy of depth, where we're learning everything we can about what we have and can make better-informed decisions about what to put into the clinic."
In June, ConjuChem's prospects took an abrupt about-face.
Its largely forgotten GLP-1 drug scored a clinical testing coup that has raised eyebrows in investment circles.
Analysts now contend the drug has the potential to become a blockbuster treatment for Type 2 diabetics who are not yet taking insulin.
As a result, the ConjuChem board enticed Mr. Lapointe to move into the executive suite one last time, where he assumed the added tasks of interim president and chief executive officer.
His mandate: to refinance ConjuChem and find a pharmaceutical partner to complete development of GLP-1. "We'll start looking for a new CEO next year," he said.
The game plan is already paying off.
ConjuChem recently raised $37-million and its stock price has jumped sevenfold, closing Friday at $3.93 on the Toronto Stock Exchange.
"This could be the biotech comeback story of the decade," said one industry analyst, who declined to be identified, citing his firm's policy.
"They're going to have no problem partnering GLP-1 and there's nobody better in Canada to do a partnership deal than Jacques Lapointe," he added.
As president and CEO of drug maker Glaxo Canada, a predecessor company in the GlaxoSmithKline PLC group, Mr. Lapointe swung a landmark deal in the early 1990s to team Glaxo with BioChem in order to develop its 3TC drug for HIV-AIDS.
And as president of BioChem, he put together several deals to expand the biotech company's pipeline of drug products.
"He's been on both sides of the negotiating table, which is a real plus for ConjuChem going into this critical partnering phase," the analyst said.
ConjuChem's claim to fame is a technology known as DAC or "drug affinity complex."
It consists of three parts: a drug component, a hydrocarbon connector and a unique reactive chemistry compound.
When a DAC complex is injected into a patient, the reactive chemistry portion binds with albumin, the most abundant protein in blood, and begins a journey of up to 20 days delivering a drug throughout the body.
Earlier this year, a three-week study with 144 patients, of which 80 were diabetic, showed that the DAC-GLP-1 drug safely reduced blood glucose levels to near-normal levels and did not cause a reaction with the body's immune system.
A larger study with up to 450 patients is scheduled to begin this month in Europe and in North America at the end of the year to test the drug's ability to reduce average blood glucose over a three-month period, the standard used by physicians treating Type 2 diabetics.
Results of the study are expected in May.
Mr. Lapointe said the company will need a pharmaceutical partner to conduct a final late-stage clinical trial with about 3,000 patients at a cost of up to $100-million (U.S.).
"We've had significant interest already," he said. "There are negotiations and due diligence ongoing."
The problem with the widely studied GLP-1 peptide is that it breaks down in a matter of minutes in the body.
ConjuChem is betting that by linking the compound with albumin, diabetics would need injections only once or twice a week.
At least three competitors -- Eli Lilly and Co., Aventis SA and Novo Nordisk AS -- have versions of GLP-1 in clinical testing. But all of the treatments require injections once or twice daily.
Mr. Lapointe said DAC-GLP-1 remains dormant in the bloodstream and is only activated by elevated blood sugar following a meal, triggering a release of insulin from the pancreas.
"One of the known features of GLP-1, unlike anything else out there including insulin and oral pills, is that in animal studies, it increases the proliferation of new beta cells," which produce insulin in the pancreas, he said.
"If that's true in humans, this can be revolutionary and reverse the disease."