By Karen Young

After more than 30 years in the pharmaceutical industry with Pharmacia Corp. (formerly Pharmacia & Upjohn), Peter Croden took on a new challenge as president and CEO of the start-up biotechnology firm NephRx.

¿They were looking at me as sort of a bankable CEO,¿ Croden told BioWorld Today. ¿It¿s working out perfectly because I always wanted to stay in the life sciences area. [I¿m] taking a start-up and making something of it.¿

Croden for the past six years was president of Worldwide Animal Health with Pharmacia & Upjohn and the previous six years was president and general manager of Upjohn Canada. NephRx was founded by Gary Toback, a nephrologist at the University of Chicago who discovered a growth factor for kidneys and is now doing studies on the growth factors of the gastrointestinal tract.

NephRx has licensed both growth factors from the university and is focused on the discovery and development of therapeutic products for the treatment of kidney failure and disease and gastrointestinal tract diseases, such as Crohn¿s disease and ulcerative colitis.

NephRx¿s lead product in development is a peptide that in animals with acute renal failure has shown to reduce mortality rates and accelerate the return of normal renal function.

Research still is being conducted in Chicago, but the company is moving to Kalamazoo, Mich., with assistance from Southwest Michigan First, a private economic development group designed to attract businesses, particularly high-tech companies, to the area.

The group received $4.5 million from the state of Michigan to build the Innovation Center at Western Michigan University, in Kalamazoo. The Innovation Center will have 25,000 square feet of wet lab space in the 72,000-square-foot center. And NephRx is in negotiations to partner with a major pharmaceutical company.

¿We don¿t know if we will be co-developing or what role we¿ll be playing with that company,¿ Croden said.

Arch Development Partners LLC, of Chicago, is the venture capital group leading the seed investment round for the company, which Croden says has resulted in about $500,000 to date. Southwest Michigan First and Arch Development Partners LLC together have started a separate fund specifically for companies interested in locating in Kalamazoo, called the Arch Development Fund One.

Barry Broome, Southwest Michigan First CEO and executive director, said the Innovation Center and the WMU Business Technology Park are intentioned half for accelerator companies and half for early stage companies. It was Southwest Michigan First that brought Croden and NephRx together.

Croden expects the company to go after about $2.6 million in venture capital during the second quarter of 2002, and he expects to ¿gain some significant money¿ as well from any deal that may result with the pharmaceutical company now in negotiations. Plans are to bring three to six scientists to Kalamazoo when the company consolidates.

No treatment for acute renal failure exists, other than dialysis, and Croden estimates there are 250,000 patients who suffer from the condition every year. For example, many patients who undergo coronary bypass or chemotherapy suffer from renal failure. The treatment also may prove to be useful in trauma patients who have suffered multiple organ failure, Croden said. Altogether, he estimates that annual sales to patients suffering acute renal failure have a potential of more than $1 billion.

Croden, who joined the firm June 1, said the company¿s goal is to take technology to the point of drug development.

¿There¿s no way we can do drug development [as well as] marketing,¿ he said, noting that if NephRx takes a drug to trial, it will need partners, such as contract research organizations.