CLEVELAND, Ohio — A pharmaceutical start-up focused on cardiovascular disease plans to move to Cleveland and start clinical trials on at least one drug this fall.
TheraVasc, based in Shreveport, La., wants to raise $2.5 million in its first round of venture capital, said President Tony Giordano. The company would finish raising most of the money by fall and launch a Phase Ib clinical trial to test how its drug, TV1001i, works to restore blood vessels damaged by peripheral artery disease (PAD).
Once the fund-raising round is completed, TheraVasc would hire its own scientists and launch additional Phase I trials on drugs that look at congestive heart failure and systemic amyloidosis, in which a protein (amyloid) damages the body.
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“In 18 months, I hope to have completed clinical data and [to be] moving on to Phase II tests,” Giordano said.
TheraVasc uses existing drugs and applies them in different forms or combines them to treat new diseases. Its drug to treat peripheral artery disease currently is used as an injectable to treat cyanide poisoning. TheraVasc wants to convert it and use it in capsule form.
Giordano said the drug’s approach is more effective than current solutions, such as blood-thinner Coumadin or stents, and is more realistic than solutions based on stem cells. He’s already had initial talks with local researchers and physicians who could begin human trials once the drugs are ready, Giordano said.
“I tell my scientists that if they work on a drug, to make sure it’s something they would give to their own child,” he said. “If my kid has PAD, knowing what else is out there, I’d put my kid on this drug. That’s the standard under which I’m going to develop drugs.”
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The company recently received a $100,000 grant from the Great Lakes Innovation and Development Enterprise (GLIDE) and earlier won additional grant funding from the Biomedical Research Foundation of Northwest Louisiana. Talks are underway with Cleveland-based venture capitalists.
At least until the first phase of trials is complete, Giordano will likely oversee the company from afar while on part-time leave from his job as the assistant dean of research and business development at Louisiana State University Health Science Center in Shreveport. He has started or managed a handful of pharmaceutical start-ups, including cancer vaccine company Alteris, Pittsburgh biotech Cognition Therapeutics, and Message Pharmaceuticals, which created an RNA drug-discovery platform.
TheraVasc is a mildly surprising win for Greater Cleveland, which has little activity in the pharmaceutical space except for Ben Venue Laboratories and Ricerca Biosciences. Giordano said he was drawn to Cleveland because of the cardiovascular innovation in its hospital systems and business support network. He’s also originally from Cleveland suburb Walton Hills.
Giordano thinks he’ll be able to recruit executive talent — including a vice president for regulatory affairs — from other Midwestern states when the time is right.
