Pharma

Cleveland Clinic spinoff Renovo Neural aims for better multiple sclerosis drug

Cleveland Clinic spinoff Renovo Neural is looking to help pharmaceutical companies create a better drug […]

Cleveland Clinic spinoff Renovo Neural is looking to help pharmaceutical companies create a better drug to treat multiple sclerosis, a disease that attacks the central nervous system and can lead to paralysis.

Rather than develop a drug itself, Renovo’s focus is to do preclinical development work for bigger drug firms, screening small molecules to discover whether they could be the basis for a new multiple sclerosis (MS) therapy, said president Satish Medicetty, former director of stem cell research and lab operations with New York-based NeoStem.

Renovo recently hit an important milestone and finished up its first contract work for an unspecified client. The client is already asking Renovo for more work, and the company is in talks with several other potential business partners, Medicetty said.

Renovo got its start in 2008, thanks to a $3 million state grant from Ohio’s technology acceleration program Third Frontier. The company’s technology is based on the work of Bruce Trapp, chairman of the Cleveland Clinic’s department of neuroscience. Trapp is the company’s founder and part-time chief science officer.

The key to understanding Renovo’s technology is knowing how MS affects the body. The disease wreaks havoc when the body’s own immune system begins to attack myelin, a fatty insulating substance that protects and sheaths nerve fibers. Myelin is important because it helps transmit electrical signals from one part of the brain to another.

When myelin becomes damaged, scar tissue forms and inhibits the body’s ability to transmit nerve signals. That can lead to numbness in the limbs, or more seriously, paralysis and blindness. About 400,000 Americans are affected by MS.

One means of reversing the effects of MS would be to stimulate the production of more myelin, and that’s where Renovo comes in. The company’s technology screens small molecules to find compounds that could help the body grow new cells that generate myelin. Renovo then tests the compounds on animals that have been given a toxin to rid their brains of myelin to see whether the compounds stimulate new myelin production.

“We’re the only commercial entity offering this as a service,” Medicetty said.

Most MS drugs are designed to slow or stop the progression of damage to myelin, but nothing on the market is aimed regenerating the substance, a process known as remyelination, according to Medicetty. (Mayo Clinic has also been pursuing a remyelination drug.)

“The current treatments aren’t doing anything to reverse the pathology in the brain,” he said. “Our technology can tell whether a new drug or molecule can make new myelin sheaths in the brain.”

The only currently available oral MS drug, Novartis’ Gilenya, has been shown to decrease new brain lesions associated with MS, but the drug doesn’t help with remyelination — and it’s also quite expensive. The drug is priced at about $48,000 per year, the Wall Street Journal reported. Injectable MS drugs are slightly cheaper, at a cost of about $40,000 per year.

Renovo also has exclusive rights to a compound that could be the basis for an MS drug, but for now the company plans to focus on the revenue-generating opportunities its screening business is providing. In the future, Renovo will likely set up a subsidiary company to seek outside investment, partners or licensing opportunities for the drug development program, Medicetty said.

Additionally, the company is considering purchasing the expensive equipment necessary to begin performing three-dimensional electron microscopy, which would allow scientists to view tissue samples at a much greater depth and potentially open up new research opportunities for Renovo.

“We are looking into going into small niche markets that require high expertise,” Medicetty said.

Shares0
Shares0