MORRISVILLE…Teamm Pharmaceuticals, acquired by Accentia Inc. last year, has re-emerged in a combined company, Accentia BioPharmaceuticals, says the Hopkins Capital Group, the investor group bringing together its acquisitions.
Hopkins says in a statement that, “Accentia BioPharmaceuticals is bringing a combination of late-stage investigational therapies and acquired products to market.
“Hopkins Capital Group’s acquisitions of well-established and mature organizations with expertise in their respective areas will allow Accentia to move the recently acquired pipeline products efficiently from research to market. Management expects that revenue from the current operations will help fund the company’s ambitious pipeline.”
Accentia, based in Tampa, FL, expects to hire 15 to 20 employees in Morrisville in coming months, the company says.
New cancer treatment
Martin Baum, founder and president of Teamm, is president of commercial operations for the new company, which integrates several Accentia subsidiaries.
“The company’s pipeline includes more than 15 products, a number of which are in areas of large unmet need,” says Baum.
“Two of our products in the pipeline may offer the potential to change the treatment and outcome of targeted diseases. The first is Biovaxid, a phase III, personalized cancer vaccine for the treatment of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, that we acquired exclusive rights to from the National Cancer Institute.”
Although not so well known, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma is the sixth leading cause of death from cancer in the United States, with 56,000 new cases diagnosed every year. The Accentia drug for this disease, considered incurable with current treatments, had “unprecedented results,” in follow-ups to a Phase II trial that showed 90 percent survival rates after seven years. The drug is currently in a multi-center Phase III trial.
Sinusitis drug
“The second,” says Baum, “is a novel, investigational, topical form of the anti-fungal agent amphotericin B for the treatment of chronic rhinosinusitis (CRS) that we acquired from the Mayo Foundation For Medical Education And Research.”
CRS affects an estimated 37 million people in the United States. Despite the lack of an approved drug for this condition, healthcare expenditures to treat it were about $3.5 billion in 1996, the company says.
Accentia has 15 experimental drugs in development, including treatments.
The company also sells drugs to treat pain, colds, and respiratory illness. It will sell its Histex cold, cough, and allergy medicines under the Teamm brand. The Morrisville office has 26 employees and will be the commercial center of the new company.
The Hopkins Capital Group is a private equity fund specializing in healthcare investing.
HCG specializes in early-stage investments in disruptive innovations in healthcare. Unlike institutional venture capital funds, HCG provides capital with a timeline expectation of typically five to 10 years. The group typically acquires a controlling interest and leverages its experience, human resources, technology access in other portfolio companies, and commercialization assets to enhance the likelihood of success.
Accentia
www.accentia.net
Hopkins Capital Group
hopkinscap.com
