Doug Ingram is on to the next thing.
The veteran pharmaceutical executive most recently served as chief executive of Chase Pharmaceutical Corp., which last week struck a deal on a sale to Allergan PLC for as much as $1 billion, with an upfront payment of $125 million and another $875 million if various regulatory and sales milestones are met.
It was a brief reunion of sorts for Ingram and Allergan Inc.—he was the president of that company at the time of its $73 billion sale to Actavis PLC last year. Actavis took on the Allergan name and has maintained its former headquarters campus in Irvine as a center of its aesthetic and eye-care lines of business.
Ingram was widely hailed for his work to keep Allergan running in top form while David Pyott, chief executive of the drugmaker at the time, devoted his time to fending off a hostile bid by Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc.—a saga that played out for nearly a year before Actavis stepped in as friendly suitor.
Ingram soon joined Chase Pharmaceutical, which has focused on development of treatments for neurodegenerative disorders, including Alzheimer’s disease.
The clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company also has an office in Washington D.C., but agreed to relocate its headquarters to Irvine when Ingram joined the company last December.
The sale of Chase has Ingram turning to establishing an entity to invest in clinical-stage companies in Orange County.
“I want to do things like [Chase] again in Orange County,” he said. “The last year was a blast—I love the concept of building a company with a small group of very smart people committed to getting something done. It’s a work in progress, but I imagine a central organization with talented people in it and other franchises [around] the hub.”
Ingram said he envisions an enterprise that would be open to investments in various healthcare sectors, including medical devices and pharmaceutical. He plans to target clinical-stage companies that have gotten beyond proof-of-concept in humans, and aims to assemble a portfolio of companies with varying maturity, from clinical-stage to commercialization.
“I’d be open to medical device and pharmaceutical [opportunities], but more pharma, given my background,” Ingram said. “Orange County has been known for having a medical device focus, and I think that’s great, but it doesn’t have to stay that way. There are exciting innovations, and I think it will be great to go where the technology excites you.”
Ingram was in the middle of raising $80 million to bring Chase’s lead drug candidate, CPC-201, into third-phase clinical trials when he received an unsolicited call from Allergan late this past summer.
CPC-201 contains donepezil, which contains acetylcholinesterase—an enzyme that has been shown to improve cognition in Alzheimer’s disease patients—and solifenacin, which reduces negative side effects caused by acetylcholinesterase. The combination enables dosages to be increased from the current standard of 10 millgrams per day to 40 milligrams.
“We are able to take this drug, this cognitive restorer, and dose it at a therapeutically optimal level,” he said. “This does not cure the patient, but what it does is, it gives patients more time.”
Allergan plans to advance CPC-201 into a single Phase 3 study early next year.
Allergan is based in Dublin, Ireland, and keeps U.S. operations in Parisppany, N.J. and Irvine. Its Namenda drug is approved for treatment of moderate to severe Alzheimer’s disease.
