Virtual patients help drug-testing efficiency, replace animals

February 10, 2007

This company is based in our bay area!

Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal - February 2, 2007

by Lynn Graebner A Foster City

life sciences company says its virtual version of the laboratory mouse is making new-drug development faster, cheaper and more efficient -- and is even more important as companies deal with new European Union rules against animal testing.

Entelos Inc., which has been working for the past decade on computer models that create virtual patients, has supplied Unilever -- maker of products like Dove soap and Pond's lotion -- with a computer model that simulates skin sensitization. Unilever will use the technology in an effort to comply with an EU mandate that by Mar. 11, 2009, cosmetic ingredients sold there cannot be tested on animals.

Entelos president and CEO James Karis anticipates more business might come the company's way as other consumer products companies selling in the EU look at ways to comply with the ban.

" We have a lot of discussions going on [with other companies]. Clearly this announcement was noticed, " he says. " This is our first involvement outside of the pharmaceuticals. "

Pfizer Inc. of New York is also a partner of Entelos. " We are continually exploring ways to, one: minimize animal use with the hope of someday eliminating the need to use them entirely and, two: identify and affirm the attributes and side-effects of potential new drugs early in the R & D process, which involves 10 to 15 years, " says Kate Robins, a Pfizer spokeswoman.

To date Entelos has been building computer models of various diseases such as cardiovascular disease, asthma, obesity, diabetes and rheumatoid arthritis. " What we're building here are mathematical representations of human biology, " Karis says.

On Jan. 23, the company announced it had completed its computer model for simulating cholesterol regulation, plaque build-up in arteries and cardiovascular risk. Entelos reports it is working on research in this area with three large, but unnamed, pharmaceutical companies. The list of partners it has named includes heavyweights such as Abbott, AstraZeneca International, Sanofi-Aventis, Bayer AG, Bristol Meyers Squibb, Eli Lilly, Johnson & Johnson Pharmaceutical Research & Development, LLC, Novartis, Procter & Gamble, Roche and Unilever.

" We started looking at Entelos in 1998 when the genomics era was starting, " says Richard Ho, director of disease simulation for J & J in

La Jolla. Using a mathematics approach to treating diseases was new to J & J. " We were used to using a few genes at a time. These guys were using all the genes, " Ho says.

He describes the approach as " reverse engineering, " dissecting how a body becomes diseased. While other companies and academic institutions are using a similar approach to disease research, " this company brings it together in a way that's easy for this company [J & J] to apply, " Ho says.

" Lots of pharma companies are using their technology, " says Richard Kahn, chief scientific and medical officer at the American Diabetes Association (ADA). " We think their technology is pretty unique. We've had a longstanding relationship with them on many issues. " In fact, Entelos and ADA have formed an initiative called the

Diabetes Research

Center and plan to fund research institutions who want to use Entelos' technology to study the onset, progression and treatment of diabetes.

" They've [Entelos] got this technology and we want people to use it and we're willing to support the academic investigators, " Kahn says. DRC will start issuing grants in July, he says. " By utilizing Entelos' virtual patient approach to predict drug effects in concert with our preclinical and clinical data, we hope to more effectively identify the best compounds to move into clinical testing, " says Darien Wilson, director of public affairs at Roche.

Entelos' technology is designed to help companies avoid the expensive failures which have made the cost of getting a new drug to market to hit $1 billion in some cases, and drawn the process out to as many as 12 years. Entelos is working to help companies determine which drug

candidates might have the greatest impact on a disease, what dosage would be safe for humans, which patients would be best suited for the clinical trials, how the drug compares to competitors' products and if it might be useful to treat other ailments.

Earlier this month Entelos purchased an option for an early stage drug compound from Johnson & Johnson Pharmaceutical Research & Development LLC. The company say s this is one example of its strategy to use its disease simulator systems to raise revenue for buying rights to drugs.

Karis says the company would like to take some drugs to final phase three clinical trials and then partner them out to large pharma companies. That's about the point in development when pharma companies are interested, he says.