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Hunting For Unicorns: Starton Therapeutics

 
• By Ben Comer

Clinical-stage biopharma Starton Therapeutics is developing continuous delivery systems and transdermal technologies to improve the safety and efficacy of existing cancer medications, and eschewing VC firms in favor of retail investors. Chair and CEO Pedro Lichtinger recently appeared on Unicorn Hunters, an online reality TV show, to pitch the company to celebrity judges, and the public at large.

Unicorn
• Source: Alamy

Transdermal delivery of medicines is not a new idea – a transdermal patch designed for the delivery of scopolamine, for motion sickness, and post-operative nausea and vomiting, was first approved for use in the US in 1979 – but the technology has been confined mostly to hormone therapies and pain medications ever since.

That is changing, as new scientific research into transdermal delivery technology uncovers benefits, beyond convenience of use and patient compliance with treatment. At privately held Starton Therapeutics, Inc., a...

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