A new San Diego-based company that announced its formationon Tuesday plans to develop drugs to treat melanoma andrestenosis by regulating fibroblast growth factors (FGF).

Prizm Pharmaceuticals Inc. comes endowed with twopreclinical-stage products -- a diagnostic and a therapeutic --that are based on FGF receptor research conducted at theWhittier Institute in San Diego.

Prizm was formed with a $500,000 seed round of venturecapital from Domain Associates of Costa Mesa, Calif., andBiotechnology Investments Ltd. of London. The company plansto raise this fall an additional $4.5 million in a first round ofventure backing, with Domain as the lead backer, Tina S.Hronis-Berger, Prizm's vice president and chief operatingofficer, said Tuesday.

Whittier, a non-profit research group formed in the mid-1980sby former scientists from the Salk Institute, has received anundisclosed amount of stock in Prizm. In exchange, it grantedPrizm exclusive rights to technology developed in thelaboratory of Andrew Baird, an FGF expert who headsWhittier's department of molecular and cellular growth biology.Baird joins Prizm in a part-time capacity as acting vicepresident of research and development.

Whittier's licensing involved no cash payment from Prizm, butdoes provide that it receive milestone payments on researchand royalties on sales of any resulting products, Berger said.

Baird's team "has created several FGF antagonists, includingsome of the most potent anti-FGFs identified so far," saidRichard S. Schneider, a partner in Domain Associates who isalso Prizm's chairman and acting president.

Baird's research is aimed at regulating FGF at various pointsduring the course of cell injury or malignancy. "These eventsare rare in the cells of adults except when something goeswrong," Baird said. "This means that FGF-based products mayoffer specificity and few side effects."

He cites as an example melanoma cells, which "synthesize FGPand proliferate in its presence." That effect might be the basisfor developing diagnostic and therapeutic products.

No early-stage melanoma diagnostic is now available, althoughNeoRx Corp. of Seattle has a melanoma test pending FDAreview. Prizm's proposed product, Melo-Derm, is an antibodythat binds to melanoma cells but ignores benign melanocytesand squamous cells. The company is at least 18 months awayfrom filing with the FDA for a product approval, Berger said.The same technology might also be harnessed as the basis for atargeted therapeutic for melanoma, she said.

Restenosis, the re-occlusion of arteries that frequently followsballoon angioplasty, involves an FGF-mediated proliferation ofsmooth muscle cells in blood vessels. "The increased expressionof FGF receptors may be utilized to monitor or treat restenosis,just as with melanoma," Baird said.

About 30 percent to 50 percent of the 200,000 angioplastiesperformed each year in the U.S. re-occlude within six months,which often leads to a repeat angioplasty or heart bypasssurgery, according to the company. Prizm has tested its drug,Steno-Stat, in dogs as a treatment of restenosis. A filing of aninvestigational new drug (IND) application is not expected forat least two years, Berger said.

Prizm's FGF-based compound is intended to bind to FGFreceptors of the proliferating smooth muscle cells along theblood vessel walls. It delivers saporin, a potent mitotoxin thatinhibits ribosomal function, killing the cells while leavingunharmed underlying endothelial cells. The research also holdspotential for leading to early-stage imaging diagnostic thatcould tell if an angioplasty patient is likely to re-occlude,Berger said.

Joining Prizm on a full-time basis are Michael P. Nova, a LaJolla, Calif., dermatopathologist and co-director of PacificDermatopathology and Medical Laboratories, who was namedvice president of business development, and Douglas Lappi,who becomes the company's chief scientist. He previouslyworked with Baird at Whittier.

Ward S. Casscells, a visiting scientist at Whittier who is joiningthe cardiology division of the University of Texas HealthSciences Center this fall, will serve as a consultant to thecompany. Roger Guillemin, a Nobel laureate at the WhittierInstitute, has been recruited to the company's board ofscientific advisers.

Prizm will have no chief executive officer, at least for the near-term, Berger said.

Berger was previously executive director of development atLigand Pharmaceutical Inc. ,where she was responsible fordeveloping a highly automated drug screening system.Previously, Berger managed research in cancer andcardiovascular diagnostic development at Hybritech Inc.

The company plans to move next month into a 10,500-square-foot facility in the Sorrento Valley section of San Diego.

-- Ray Potter Senior Editor

(c) 1997 American Health Consultants. All rights reserved.