The Asthma Challenge: Not Solved Yet
This article was originally published in Start Up
Executive Summary
Asthma represents one of the blockbuster markets in the pharmaceutical industry; sales of drugs from 10 companies amount to $14 billion each year. Yet despite the high-volume sales of asthma drugs, in 73% of patients the disease is poorly controlled. For pharmaceutical firms and start-ups, the complex, multifactorial disease offers tantalizing possibilities; it's an enormous, yet underserved market with many points of entry, mechanistically speaking.
You may also be interested in...
Start-Up News October 2006
Arbios Systems and Livercyte provide assistance for the failing liver, and Aperon Biosystems takes up the asthma challenge.
Topigen Pharmaceuticals Inc.
Topigen Pharmaceuticals Inc. plans to mount a full-scale attack on chronic respiratory ailments such as asthma, COPD and allergic rhinitis, with mRNA-interfering drugs that target multiple pathways. Its lead compound, for asthma, combines two antisense molecules to target at least eight different components of the inflammatory response.
airPharma
When it came time to build a pipeline, airPharma's founders turned to a product they knew well for their lead compound:a drug formerly marketed as Pumactant, for neonatal respiratory distress. This compound is an inhalable synthetic pulmonary surfactant. The symptoms of asthma have been associated with surfactant dysfunction.