Small-Molecule Drug Start-Ups

01 Sep 1998

• By Roger Longman

Companies pursuing small-molecule drugs are by far the most popular of the start-ups in biopharmaceuticals. But the biggest opportunity in the business is still up for grabs: the industrialization of medicinal chemistry.

At a 1993 Hambrecht & Quist conference, Sugen Inc. co-founder and CEO, Stephen Evans-Freke, presented the argument for his new company. Since the biggest-selling drugs were all small molecules, and only one protein drug had ever become a blockbuster as a chronic care medicine (insulin), his company would go after small molecules. They're usually easier and cheaper to make than proteins and, most importantly, have a better chance of becoming medications which can be taken orally, a key feature of most chronic-care medicines.

Evans-Freke was by no means alone in identifying the small-molecule opportunity. Sugen was among a wave of late 80's, early...