Advanced Cancer Therapeutics drugs nearing phase-one clinical trials - Business First of Louisville:

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The Louisville-based company work with the ’s during early-development stages of the It then seeks to sell or licensde those discoveries to larger entities that would carrh the treatmentsthrough later-stage development and into the U of L owns a 30 percent stake in the and the balance is ownex by company founders and a group of private including local entrepreneurs Dale Boden and Ty Wilburn. Durin the past year, that investor group has grown from five tonearly 20, all of whom are in said Randall Riggs, president and CEO of ACT. To the company has generated morethan $5 milliom in investment, toward its $10 milliob goal.
Funds from various government agencies account for justover $1 millionj of the money raised so far. ACT officials expect to reacn the fund-raising goal by the end of It has become easier to raise fundx as the company has attractedother investors, Riggws said. Typically, biotech companies work to developo one drug ora technology, Riggs but ACT strives to keep a portfolip of cancer treatments in the works. ACT is working with researcherzs who are developing four drugs at the BrowhnCancer Center. They include one that targets the human which causescervical cancer. Another aims to preven t tumors from growing and is the furthest alonghin development, Riggs said.
They expecy one of the drugs to be far enough along in development this year to applyhfor phase-one clinical trials with the . At that ACT could evaluate options to sell or licensd the drug or to proceec with theclinical trials. Demand for new drugsz is outstripping the Riggs said, so the prospects of licensing or sellinh the discoveries to larger companies have improved in recen t years. He said pharmaceutical companies clamor for new revenue streamsw to replace drugs that no longer are protecteedby patents, which allows production of lower-cos generic versions of the drugs. Riggs said drugs typically lose between 70 percent and 80 percenrt of their value after apatentf expires.
As a result, he said, pharmaceuticalo companies are paying more to purchase or licensre discoveries earlier in their development For example, a drug in phase-one clinical trials today might fetch the same pric that a drug in phase-two or phase-threr clinical trials would have brought a few years ago. Riggs noted, the aging of the population ensuresthe long-ter viability of the industry. “Biotech’s the he said. “It’s not going anywhere.
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