DNAprint Genomics (DNAG)

[SlopsterSlasher]

By ming:
Hector Gomez is certainly a busy guy. Here are some of the things that he is involved with.

http://www.dnaprint.com/pr_bod.html

February 26, 2002: press release announcing that Hector was on DNAP's board. At that time "He currently serves on the Board of Directors of Zengen, Inc."

http://www.tbtf.org/article.cfm?article=29

November 1, 2002: A new chief executive officer sits at the head of the table at Saneron CCEL Therapeutics Inc., a biotechnology company located at the Center for Entrepreneurship at the University of South Florida.

Paul Sanberg, the former president and CEO of Saneron, said Dr. Hector J. Gomez has taken over that role. Gomez was a local consultant for about a year before coming on board at Saneron, said Sanberg, who also founded the company.

http://www.sema4usa.com/Company/events/LifeSciences2002.htm

November 7, 2002: From the Semaphore press release about their due diligence expansion into life sciences "Richard Gabriel former CEO of Calix Corporation is the point person for the firm as head of Life Sciences diligence services practice...His team includes: Hector Gomez, MD, Ph.D, former CEO of Transcend Therapeutics, Inc. and Lonnie Bookbinder, Ph.D, an experienced large Pharma executive."

http://columbus.bizjournals.com/tampabay/stories/2002/12/02/daily27.html

December 4, 2002: Gomez gone from Saneron. After little more than a month on the job, Dr. Hector J. Gomez is no longer the chief executive officer of Saneron CCEL Therapeutics Inc., a biotechnology company located in the business incubator at the University of South Florida.

"We brought him in on a trial basis, and there just wasn't a strategic fit," said Nicole Kuzmin-Nichols, vice president, business development and operations for Saneron. She declined to give further details.

What happened here I wonder?

http://www.dnaprint.com/pr_04_09_03.htm

April 9, 2003: press release announcing that Richard Gabriel is CEO also tells us that "Dr. Hector J. Gomez, MD, PhD, DNAP Board Chairman"

http://clinication.com/advisory.htm

Clinication's Advisory Board includes: Hector Gomez, MD, Ph.D. Partner, Genbiomics, Tampa, Florida. Click on his name and it tell's you that "He currently serves on the Board of Directors of Phase 5 Sciences, PRB Pharmaceuticals, and DNAprint Genomics, where he is Chairman of the Board."

(Incidentally, the other partners in Genbiomics are none other than Richard Gabriel and Lonnie Bookbinder...)

http://www.foleylardner.com/resourcecenter/r_sem_full.asp?ID=193

One of the participants at the 7/9/03 meeting: Hector Gomez, Chairman/President DNA Print Genomics, Saneron, and Cellgenica.

Let me throw in the following:

http://www.leespharm.com/ce/media/Ora-Flu.pdf

April 16, 2003: Lee's Pharmaceutical Holdings Limited (www.leespharm.com), a research-driven and market-oriented biopharmaceutical group engaged in the development, manufacturing and sales of quality biopharmaceutical products in the Peoples Republic of China, today announced that the Group obtained the exclusive distribution rights from a US biopharmaceutical company, PRB Pharmaceuticals Inc. based in Long Beach, California for OraFlu and OraFlu Plus, two products developed as treatments for viral infectious diseases. The exclusive covers the territory of Hong Kong SAR.

http://www.zengen.com/

July 15, 2002: Zengen, Inc. announced today that one of its strategic partners, Lee's Pharmaceutical Holdings, Ltd., a biopharmaceutical company based in Hong Kong, began trading today on the Hong Kong Growth Enterprise Market...Zengen entered into a licensing agreement with Lee's Pharmaceutical on February 2, 2002.

http://www.beverlyglen.com/

This is Phase 5 Sciences (previously known as Beverly Glen Medical Systems Corp.). They have a number of cardiologists associated with them (Timothy Callahan and William Shell are the names on the patents), and some interesting people behind them and on their advisory board.

Their technology "has been used successfully in many phases of clinical trials, and is of particular interest in the early Phase I environment. It's designed to help you identify early on in the drug development process, potential problems with QT-interval prolongation."

There is "another" company called Bevglen Medical Systems of Delaware. There is a connection with Beverly Glen through a company called Founders Equity:

http://www.fequity.com/people_partners.html

BevGlen were involved in litigation over a drug called Propulsid:

http://propulsid.laed.uscourts.gov/Orders/jointr10.pdf

http://propulsid.laed.uscourts.gov/Orders/me070301.pdf

Now here is a coincidence, William Shell (Beverly Glen patent author) and Dwain Eckberg (Beverly Glen Advisory Board) seem to have been involved in Propulsid litigation as well.

http://www.jwlaw.com/db30/cgi-bin/pubs/productsvol29.htm

Incidentally, Shell has also been in trouble with the SEC:

http://classaction.findlaw.com/cases/securities/sec/sec1/files/1997/lr15441.html

The main drugs (apart from baycol) that have been recently withdrawn from the market post FDA approval include the following. The weight-loss (appetite suppressant) drugs Pondimin and Redux (Wyeth-Ayerst/American Home Products), popularly known in combination as Fen-Phen, were withdrawn due to valvular heart disease in some patients. The diabetes drug Rezulin (Warner-Lambert) was withdrawn due to problems with liver failure. The inflammatory bowel disease drug Lotronex (GlaxoSmithKline) was withdrawn due to problems with intestinal inflammation due to lack of blood flow. The high blood pressure drug Posicor (Roche) was withdrawn due to problems with it slowing or stopping the heart rate. The antihistamines Seldane (Marion Merrell Dow) and Hismanal (Janssen) , and the heartburn drug Propulsid (Johnson & Johnson), were all withdrawn due to then causing potentially fatal irregular heartbeat. The antibiotic Raxar (Glaxo Wellcome) was withdrawn due to it also causing potentially fatal irregular heartbeat. The analgesic Duract (Wyeth-Ayerst/American Home Products) was withdrawn due to problems with liver failure.

Looks like irregular heartbeat seems to be an important drug side-effect, and an important element in design of clinical trials. Interesting.

The main point is that at the moment Hector seems to be:

- The Chaiman of DNAP
- On the advisory board of Clinication
- A Partner in Gembionics (with Gabriel and Bookbinder)
- A Director of Zengen? (not according to their website)
- Still involved with Semaphore?
- A Director of Phase 5 Sciences
- A Director of PRB Pharmaceuticals (Lee/Zengen tie-in)
- The Chairman/President of Cellgenica (whatever they do)

Hector is clearly a Stakhanovite! Good job he's not doing anything stressful like selling his house at the moment. He was also previously teaching at USF and, in his spare time presumably, running projects at DNAP. According to the August 2, 2001 press release: "Dr. Hong-Gong Wang from the USF will serve as the principal investigator for the grant and, Hector Gomez, M.D., Ph.D and K. Ponnuswamy, Ph.D. will serve as the leaders for the project on the company side."

BTW note that the press release announcing Hector as a Director of DNAP was on February 26, 2002 - however he was already working for them in August 2001. There is definitely something odd about dates here (apart from anything else) as W2P has noted...