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Moving Beyond Accutane and Botox

 
• By Ellen Licking

Ever hungry for new investment opportunities, VCs are now backing start-ups developing novel dermatology products for both medical and cosmetic conditions. These aren't your typical "derm" companies. Not content to invent new delivery vectors for existing medicines or reformulate them into more patient friendly creams, these fledgling companies are trying to develop new chemical entities based on novel skin biology.

A few private investors are betting that dermatology may be the new ophthalmology. Just a few years ago that sector was viewed as a pharmaceutical backwater dogged by a diverse set of problems that included a fragmented market, drug delivery challenges, and less than effective therapies. But the advent of breakthrough therapeutics such as OSI Pharmaceuticals Inc. 's pegylated aptamer pegaptanib (Macugen) and Genentech Inc.'s antibody fragment ranibizumab (Lucentis), both for age related macular degeneration, has certainly changed the investment equation, and VCs and pharma alike have opened their eyes to money-making possibilities in ophthalmology. (See "Post Macugen, Still In-Licensing to Uncover Value in Ophthalmology," START-UP, July 2006 Also see "Post-Macugen, Still In-Licensing to Uncover Value in Ophthalmology" - Scrip, 1 July, 2006..)

Ever hungry for new investment opportunities, VCs from such leading firms as Versant Ventures, TVM Capital, MPM Capital, and Venrock...

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