Opsona, And Pharma Backers, Await Day of Reckoning for Kidney Drug
Summary
“That’s the real moment for the company, when we find out [the results of the trial],” says Opsona co-founder and chief scientific officer Luke O’Neill (pictured above), the chair of Trinity College Dublin’s biochemistry department.Cheshire, CT-based Alexion Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: ALXN) is testing its blockbuster drug eculizumab, which already approved for rare blood diseases.“So you’re getting in at the ground level, if you like, and stopping all the cascade of events that might happen next.” O’Neill has been on a roughly 10-year quest to demonstrate the value of targeting the toll-like receptors.It hasn’t been easy, historically, for startup biotechs in Dublin to get the necessary funding to leap from academic research to developing real products—crossing the so-called valley of death.He did contract research and other collaborative work for Big Pharma and established relationships with people involved with biotech companies, like South San Francisco, CA-based Genentech.