Delta Pharm. Enters Analgesic Market With A Bang

In 1996, Delta Pharmaceuticals Inc. was a startup tucked away in a Chapel Hill home and 2,000 square feet of laboratory space in the depths of the Research Triangle Institute campus.

Just three years later, Delta is ready to break out of a mild existence since attaining a substantial level of growth.

"We have set our sights on developing several branches of our platform technology, which we believe will give us a good chance at creating a full-fledged pharmaceutical company here in the Triangle," said Ken Chang, Delta's president.

Delta recently completed a successful Phase I study of its lead compound, raised several million dollars through various private investors and signed a license agreement with Organon Teknika, a subsidiary of the Akzo Nobel Pharma Group of Arhem, the Netherlands.

The current flurry of activity has much to do with Delta's technology, which is based on novel delta receptor compounds that cross the blood-brain barrier. First identified by Chang and Robert McNutt, Ph.D., these compounds will be used to develop strong but safe analgesics, urinary incontinence agents and other therapeutics.

Delta is managed by a group of scientists who have a long history in the Triangle. Chang and McNutt were partnering on delta receptor research at Burroughs Wellcome Co. when it merged with Glaxo Inc. in 1995. At the time, Glaxo had a chief analgesic product, so it agreed to license the delta receptor technology and a library of about 450 compounds to Chang in exchange for royalty payments on future products.

McNutt recently left Glaxo to become Delta's director of chemistry. Hugh O. Pettit, Ph.D., who is vice president of research and development, also worked as a scientist at Wellcome with Chang and McNutt.

The injectable form of Delta's lead compound, DPI-3290, intended as a post-operative drug, was recently successful in demonstrating pain relief

similar to morphine and fentanyl without the typical side affects like nausea, respiratory depression and vomiting in a Phase I study of 52 healthy volunteers.

"This is a potent analgesic," Pettit said. "It is ten times stronger than morphine."

This version of the compound, and its success in the Phase I study, was what prompted the multimillion dollar development and distribution agreement with Organon in April. Organon will take over the development of the injectable drug and likely begin Phase II trials later this year, Chang said.

"There are a number of pharmaceutical companies working on delta receptor compounds," Pettit said. "But we were the first to test them in humans.

Armed with funding from the collaboration and about $4 million from private investors, including Chang, Delta's next pipeline project is a pill or patch form of the DPI-3 290 compound for chronic pain from cancer or other long-term illnesses.

But there are other potential products, too -- including one for urinary incontinence -- for a total of five in the near future. Delta has six U.S. patents and another pending and is broadly filed throughout the world, Pettit said.

"The worst thing you can do is have your first child, sell it off, and have nothing else," he said.

The plan is to attract venture capital funding or sell the first three compounds at various clinical trial stages until there is enough money coming in to add manufacturing, sales and marketing for other potential products in the future.

Delta presented at Venture '99 on April 29 in the hopes of attracting $3 to $5 million in venture capital for the immediate future. David LaVance, president of Century Capital Associates of Princeton, N.J., who made Delta's presentation as the company's financial advisor, calls Delta a healthy biotech company.

"Delta has raised more money than the standard biotech, and has done it substantially sooner than many biotech companies," he said.

With growth comes the need for a new home. A near immediate addition of about 10 scientists means Delta cannot rely on Chang's home and lab space at RTI. Pettit said the company is looking in the Research Triangle area to lease existing building space with laboratories and expansion potential to match the company's anticipated growth of 30 percent to 50 percent per year over the next several years.

COPYRIGHT 1999 North Carolina Biotechnology Center
COPYRIGHT 2008 Gale, Cengage Learning