Unigene Laboratories has hired a chief financial officer as it continues its quest to develop its product pipeline and bring firmer financial footing to the biotechnology company, particularly in reducing its $43 million debt.
David Moskowitz, previously worked as a senior sell-side equity analyst at Roth Capital Partners where he covered Big Pharma companies for seven years before shifting over to emerging growth companies in the pharmaceutical industry, among them Unigene.
In a phone interview with MedCity News, Moskowitz described himself as a contrarian by nature, looking for value where others fail to recognize it.
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“I’d liken this [move] to taking the other side of the consensus view on Wall Street. How can I find something out that Wall Street doesn’t know?”
He said his move from the analyst chair to the CFO desk was not so uncommon these days, especially for someone that has covered an industry for several years. “When a special opportunity comes up, you don’t want to pass it up… you want to go after it.”
Moskowitz added: “There is a good pathway to unlocking the value of the company.”
Unigene’s pipeline includes an oral calcitonin therapeutic to treat and cure osteoporosis in post menopausal women. The drug is licensed to a venture capital collaboration, Tarsa, in which Unigene holds a 16 percent stake. Today, Tarsa announced it has raised $28 million, to help fund its new drug application for Ostora to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration later this year and its path to commercialization.
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One of the Boonton, New Jersey-based company’s most pressing needs is a new partner for its oral parathyroid hormone to treat osteoporosis following GlaxoSmithKline’s (NYSE: GSK) move to end the collaboration in December last year. The deal with GSK, which dated back to 2002, generated more than half of Unigene’s licensing revenues last year. The drug had successfully completed Phase II clinical trials.
Unigene is also working with Nordic Bioscience on a diabetes program in which the companies are looking to move up to three of Unigene’s proprietary calcitonin analogs through Phase 2 proof-of-concept in people.
Unigene gets a quarter of its licensing revenue from its nasal calcitonin treatment, Fortical, for osteoporosis in post menopausal women marketed by Upsher-Smith Laboratories. It also has a peptide development platform and is working on a peptide as an appetite suppressant to treat obesity.