Founded as a small Danish company in 2003, Nordic Bone A/S formed a new office overseas in San Francisco, where it will have more access to experts in the area of bone diseases.

Not only has the company established an international reach in the last month, but also it has changed its name from Nordic Bone to Osteologix A/S in Copenhagen, and Osteologix Inc. in the U.S. It also has appointed Charles Casamento as its new CEO.

"We found that if we were going global we wanted some other connotation besides Nordic," said Casamento, explaining the name change. "We just incorporated in the U.S. I'm the first employee. We will eventually be adding people."

The company has about a half-dozen employees in Copenhagen.

Casamento, who also serves as Osteologix's president and director, is no stranger to biotech. He served as CEO and the first employee of Lexington, Mass.-based Interneuron Pharmaceuticals Inc., and he took the CEO position at Hayward, Calif.-based RiboGene Inc. when the company was only a year old. Interneuron now is known as Indevus Pharmaceuticals Inc., and RiboGene later became Questcor Pharmaceuticals Inc., of Union City, Calif. Casamento took both Interneuron and RiboGene public.

And in the biotech industry's early days, Casamento served as the first senior vice president and general manager of pharmaceuticals and biochemicals for Cambridge, Mass.-based Genzyme Corp., when it was still private in the mid-1980s.

Osteologix has become his fourth start-up company. It is focused on the late-stage development of products for bone and cartilage disorders. The original name Nordic Bone was derived from the company's main investor, Copenhagen-based Nordic Biotech.

"Right now, we're doing another round with Nordic Biotech and we will have enough cash to take us through roughly the end of 2005 and early 2006," Casamento told BioWorld Today.

Osteologix is derived from two Greek words, "osteo" meaning bone, and "logic," referring to the core principles of rational reasoning. The company's lead compound, NBS 101, is designed to treat bone diseases, such as osteoporosis.

Shortly after changing its name, the company established the U.S.-based office in San Francisco. The location brought the company closer to pharmaceutical companies active in the field of metabolic bone diseases and it provides access to leading experts, Casamento said.

"I'm really very excited about the upside, because it is a big market, and there is an unmet medical need," he said. "The population is growing older and none of the products are really ideal."

While the company has a broad portfolio of patents, Casamento declined to give much detail on Osteologix's products for competitive reasons. However, he did say that NBS 101 has a lower risk for development because it is similar to a product just approved in Europe, which is from the same class of compounds. He also believes that NBS 101 could capture a good portion of the U.S. market, since the other product - which he declined to name - "is not approved in the U.S., and we're not sure it's being developed in the U.S."

Osteologix intends to begin clinical trials in Denmark of NBS 101 early in 2005. The company does not expect to do U.S. clinical trials until 2006 because the European trials are consistent with FDA requirements, Casamento said.

"This class of products appears, from observing the European drug, that it has less gastrointestinal side effects than currently marketed osteoporosis products," he said.

About 80 percent of those suffering from osteoporosis are women, and Casamento expects the market to grow, considering an aging population in which people live longer.

"What happens with the disease is that it's caused by a reduction in bone formation. Your body is manufacturing less bone," Casamento said. "The second thing that occurs is an increase in bone resorption. What you want to do in an ideal product is stop both of those processes."

Currently marketed products take care of one or the other of those processes, but not both, and that's where Casamento hopes NBS 101 will fill the void. He expects to eventually partner NBS 101 and may consider retaining co-promotion rights for the U.S., depending upon the partner and Osteologix's ability to penetrate the market.

"The market in the U.S. is over $5 billion for the six or seven leading products," Casamento said.