Conatus Pharmaceuticals Inc. (CNAT)

[lorema]

The company’s roots can be traced back to Idun Pharmaceuticals, which developed an orally active pan-caspase protease inhibitor over a decade ago.1 This drug, Emricasan showed such promise in activating cytokines (small proteins important in cell signaling), and preventing physiological cell death that Pfizer bought the company in April of 2005. Three years after this acquisition, Pfizer dropped the Emricasan program due to several failures to address safety issues of concern to the United States Food and Drug Administration (“FDA”).2 Two years later, the company’s CEO, Dr. Mento, and the team which originally developed Emricasan formed Conatus, and bought Emricasan back from Pfizer. Dr. Mento and his team were able to answer the FDA’s concerns, and the clinical hold that the FDA had placed on Emricasan was lifted in 2013.

http://lchisette.hatenablog.com/entry/2014/01/29/182811