By Vicki Brower

Special To BioWorld Today

In a move to change focus, Vimrx Pharmaceuticals Inc. and partner Columbia University agreed to transform their gene identification company, Vimrx Genomics Inc. (VGI), into a new drug discovery and development venture, renamed the Ventiv BioGroup.

Wilmington, Del.-based Vimrx formed the genomics company with Columbia, of New York, in March 1997, and according to their five-year agreement, owned 90 percent of the joint venture. Columbia owned the other 10 percent of VGI.

After examining other genomics companies as well as its own drug development portfolio, Vimrx decided to reorganize in order to concentrate on near-term drug development over genomics, said Vimrx's chief scientific officer, David Jackson. To that end, it formed the new subsidiary, which will provide about $2 million to $3 million per year to Columbia over the next three years.

Ventiv also will acquire rights from Columbia to a novel receptor target, RAGE (receptor for advanced glycation endproducts), which is thought to be involved in diabetic complications.

"This is a major addition to our portfolio," said Jackson. "RAGE is a validated target which can be moved into drug discovery immediately. Columbia University researchers have a clear path for discovering a drug which will act as a RAGE antagonist and thus prevent abnormal cell behavior in diabetic patients."

Functional Assays The Next Step

The next step is to develop functional assays. Another biotech company, Alteon, is working with advanced glycation endproducts, but not a receptor for them.

Under the new agreement, the gene discoveries licensed to VGI by Columbia and three Vimrx development programs now will be transferred to Ventiv, which will be 90 percent owned by Vimrx and 10 percent owned by Columbia.

With the formation of Ventiv, the gene discovery collaboration with Columbia Genome Center will cease, including a $30 million Vimrx funding commitment, although Ventiv will keep option rights to certain future gene discoveries by the university in exchange for about $5.5 million of funding over the next four years.

Ventiv will move forward with its four other programs. One involves drug discovery using two genes, BCL-6 and MUM-1, which were discovered by Columbia physicians David Stern and Ann Marie Schmidt and which are linked to non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and multiple myeloma, respectively.

A second program involves VM-201, a Factor IXa inhibitor also discovered by Stern and Schmidt, which is targeted for use as an anticoagulant in bypass surgery and hemodialysis. VM-201 is in preclinical research at Columbia.

A third program focuses on VM-301, a small molecule wound healing drug derived from a marine organism. It is about to enter Phase I trials at Columbia. And the fourth involves Vimrxyn, synthetic hypericin, for treatment of glioblastoma, a form of brain cancer. Vimrxyn in topical form also is targeted for psoriasis, warts and cutaneous T-cell lymphoma, and is in Phase I/II trials.

Vimrxyn was tested against HIV and hepatitis C, Jackson said, but those trials were curtailed due to only "modest" antiviral activity. The drug is being tested in glioblastoma because of its inhibitory capability against protein kinase C, which is expressed in glioblastoma and other forms of cancer.

Hypericin, an active ingredient of St. John's wort, has several unrelated pharmaceutical activities, Jackson said.

Vimrx Pharmaceuticals has two other majority-owned subsidiaries -- Nexell Therapeutics Inc., of Irvine, Calif., established in March 1998 with Baxter Healthcare Corp., of Deerfield, Ill., to focus on cell therapeutics for cancer, infectious diseases, blood disorders, metabolic diseases and other indications; and Innovir Laboratories Inc., of New York, which is developing oligozymes for use as therapeutics and as research tools. *