National Editor

Having regained rights at the first of this year to apomorphine, its nasally delivered Phase II drug for male and female sexual dysfunction, Nastech Pharmaceutical Co. Inc. raised $11 million in funds for the further development of that compound and others.

"This brings us to about $30 million [in cash on hand]," said Gregory Weaver, chief financial officer of Bothell, Wash.-based Nastech, enough to take the firm through 2004. The financing added "a number of high-quality new institutional investors to the shareholder makeup of the company," he noted.

Nastech issued 1.513 million shares of common stock and warrants to purchase up to 530,000 shares of common stock at an exercise price of $11.09 per share. The warrants are exercisable up to and including Sept. 4, 2008. Nastech's stock (NASDAQ:NSTK) closed Friday at $7.98, down 70 cents.

Apomorphine had been the subject of a partnership with Pharmacia Corp., of Peapack, N.J., which merged with New York-based Pfizer Inc., maker of the blockbuster erectile dysfunction drug Viagra (sildenafil citrate). Pharmacia divested itself of apomorphine as a result of concerns by the Federal Trade Commission regarding the potential narrowing of competition in the sexual dysfunction market. (See BioWorld Today, Jan. 28, 2003.)

"We're in the process of repartnering it," Weaver told BioWorld Today. "There is some ongoing work, bridging from the old to the new partner," which has not been disclosed, he added.

Nastech's other two main programs are focused on a nasal formulation of calcitonin, for which the company expects to make a regulatory application later this year, and another product candidate for obesity. The latter is "a new program we're going to move into clinical trials in the fourth quarter of this year," Weaver said.

For breakthrough pain, Nastech also has morphine gluconate in Phase II, which is due to be partnered in the U.S. It was licensed in Europe to G. Pohl Boskamp GmbH & Co., of Hohenlockstedt, Germany, in September 2001.

Apomorphine is expected to differentiate itself in the hard-fought erectile dysfunction marketplace by a faster onset of action - 10 minutes to 15 minutes, Weaver said.

"It's a dopamine agonist and works by a different mechanism of action than the PDE5 inhibitors [such as Viagra and its competitors]," he said. Specifically, apomorphine stimulates the D1/D2 class of dopamine receptors in the brain responsible for beginning an erectile response. Oral ED drugs can take up to 90 minutes to act.

"It's direct to the bloodstream," Weaver said, and without the gastrointestinal side effects sometimes experienced by users of the oral drugs.