A well-funded startup biopharmaceutical company is moving out of Orange County as it works on getting its products on the market.
Inspiration Biopharmaceuticals Inc., which is developing treatments for hemophilia, said in late December that it would move its corporate headquarters from Laguna Niguel to Cambridge, Mass., near Boston. Inspiration said the move is part of its transition from a development-stage company to bringing its products to market.
Its decision to move appears to be tied in part to the appointment of John Butler—who previously served as president of the rare genetic diseases business for Genzyme Corp. in Cambridge—as Inspiration’s chief executive.
“As we move toward the launch of Inspiration’s first products (Cambridge) is the perfect location to establish our corporate office,” Butler said.
Relocating to the home of Harvard University—and adjacent to other academic and research institutions— “will help attract top talent” as Inspiration builds itself up, Butler said.
The company, which has financial backing from French drug maker Ipsen SA, has two drugs in development.
Inspiration’s IB1001 is for people with congenital hemophilia B, the less common form of the disease.
Hemophilia primarily strikes males with low levels or an absence of proteins called coagulation factors, which clot the blood.
The company’s OBI-1 is being tested for patients who are resistant to traditional hemophilia treatments, which typically consist of intravenous injections of coagulation proteins. Inspiration is also looking at OBI-1 to treat what’s known as acquired hemophilia A, which happens when patients develop resistance to blood coagulation proteins and can develop in older males and females.
Inspiration recently submitted a European marketing application for IB1001 and said there will be “a subsequent regulatory filing planned in the U.S.”
The global market for hemophilia treatments is estimated at $8 billion annually.
Inspiration competes with some big drug makers, including New York-based Pfizer Inc., which has a Food and Drug Administration-approved human recombinant clotting factor product called Benefix for treating hemophilia B.
Ipsen Investment
Inspiration has a big war chest: Ipsen agreed to provide up to $259 million for the development of hemophilia products. A third of the money bought Ipsen a 20% stake in Inspiration; most of the rest went toward convertible notes, which Ipsen can turn into equity over time.
Ipsen would eventually get the chance to buy the rest of Inspiration under the deal.
Inspiration was founded in Orange County, where former chief executive Michael Griffith previously ran a local company that made recombinant protein products.
Griffith is now president and chief scientific officer of the company.
Common Cause
Inspiration was started six years ago by a pair of business owners with no Orange County ties but very personal interests in battling hemophilia. Co-founders John Taylor and Scott Martin both have sons with hemophilia B.
Taylor, a foreign exchange currency manager who runs FX Concepts, a New York investment fund with $12.2 billion in assets, is Inspiration’s chairman. Taylor also established the Coalition for Hemophilia B, an advocacy group.
Martin, an oil distributor in Houston who was an executive with Martin Resource Management Corp., an energy company with more than $1 billion in revenue, is Inspiration’s co-chairman.
Taylor and Martin had been “pursuing research in this area for many, many years” and eventually met and made it a common cause, Griffith said in an earlier interview.
The pair was looking at an alternative delivery system to intravenous injections, according to Griffith.
Taylor and Martin funded the company for its first three years of existence. In 2008, Inspiration signed a funding and collaboration deal with Celtic Pharma Management LP of Bermuda valued at up to $35 million.
