New Brunswick's BioSciences CommunityCompaniesResearch OrganizationsDevelopment OrganizationsTechnology transfer, allied industry and scientific associations Other Canadian BioSciences Associations and Commercialization Agencies Soricimed BioPharma Inc. Launches New Corporate Identity, Announces Management Changes after Annual General Meeting
April 21, 2010Moncton, NB - An early-stage drug company formed in 2005 from a scientific discovery made a decade ago in Sackville has changed its name, as it focuses on commercialization of its product portfolio.
Paul Gunn, president and CEO of the Sackville-based drug development company Soricimed Biopharma Inc.- formerly known as BioProspecting NB Inc. - helped announce the company's name change to a Moncton audience at the Delta Beauséjour hotel on Monday, April 19 after a morning annual general meeting of the firm.
Gunn, made this announcement as he assumed his new role of CEO from his former position of president and chief financial officer. Kenneth Keirstead, previously the CEO, has become vice-chairman.
The name reflects the origins of the company's products - paralytic molecules named soricidin that were isolated from the saliva of the northern short-tailed shrew by Jack Stewart, chairman and chief scientific officer, when he was a professor at Mount Allison University. In the ensuing decade, the firm has developed diagnostics that find early-stage cancers and therapeutic drugs that kill ovarian and breast cancer cells without adverse side effects. The company expects to enter human clinical trials within a year, and has also developed a non-opiate pain drug. Phase 1 of the clinical trials would be looking at safety of the drug and what happens to the drug in the body of a patient.
The name reflects the origins of the company's products - paralytic molecules named soricidin that were isolated from the saliva of the northern short-tailed shrew by Jack Stewart, chairman and chief scientific officer, when he was a professor at Mount Allison University. In the ensuing decade, the firm has developed diagnostics that find early-stage cancers and therapeutic drugs that kill ovarian and breast cancer cells without adverse side effects. The company expects to enter human clinical trials within a year, and has also developed a non-opiate pain drug. Phase 1 of the clinical trials would be looking at safety of the drug and what happens to the drug in the body of a patient.
The company recently opened a Moncton corporate office in addition to its existing Sackville research lab and expects to add to its nine employees soon. The company has identified an $11-billion global market for the diagnostic tools alone. The company's research indicates that in the United States, mammograms for breast cancer mean $55 million in annual spending, with Papanicolau (Pap) test costs for cervical cancer amounting to about the same and spending on prostate cancer amounting to $50 million.
He said the firm is also able to piggyback a foreign molecule onto its drugs to reach lymph nodes and tumours, opening up the possibility of a new drug delivery vehicle.
For more information on these announcements, please visit:
http://nbbusinessjournal.canadaeast.com/transcript/article/1023088
http://www.jminforme.ca/economie/article/1032512
http://www.soricimed.com/content/home
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