After the Boston Marathon bombing, it’s easy to understand why the government is giving G1 Therapeutics millions of dollars to develop a pill that protects against radiation exposure.
If the pressure-cooker bomb had been a dirty bomb instead, Boston would have had a public health crisis to deal with in addition to the manhunt and trauma patients.
G1 Therapeutics is closer than ever to human trials of a radiomitigant that would protect bone marrow and the liver in particular from the effects of radiation.
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The team is working on two formulations of the same molecule. The lead formulation is in intravenous form that could be added to existing chemo treatments.
“This allows us to exquisitely tune in the dose and to turn it on or turn it off,” Christy Shaffer, Ph.D., said.
Shaffer is the executive chair of the board at G1 Therapeutics and a venture partner at Hatteras Venture Partners, and managing director of Hatteras Discovery.
The North Carolina company’s drug could help soldiers as well. The other formulation will be a pill form that governments could stockpile or soldiers could store in their backpacks. This treatment would work after exposure. Current protective treatments have to be given before exposure.
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Shaffer said the company has a pipeline, not a single compound. “The chemical scaffolding they have created has generated a different number of compounds; the lead is what we can get into the clinic first,” she said.
Hatteras Venture Partners led the initial seed round with a $600,000 investment last September. The firm invested another $400,000 this year.
“By 2014, we expect to be through initial conversations with the FDA and be ready for first human testing,” she said.
G1 got $1 million in a fast-track grant from the National Institutes of Health last year. G1 also won a Phase I SBIR grant in April from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, part of the NIH. The grant was for $159,836.
Shaffer said that G1 Therapeutics is a good example of a company that has taken advatange of nondiluted financing.
“The are taking advantage of grants and coupled with venture money, this shows that 1 + 1 equals well over three,” she said and added that the company got extremely good scores on their grants.
The company is preparing an application due at the end of May for a grant for several million dollars from the military.
G1 Therapeutics was founded in 2008 by Dr. Norman Sharpless and Dr. Kwok-Kin Wong as G Zero Therapeutics. The company changed its name last year.
[Image from G1 Therapeutics]