After noticing that the former President of the US operations of Danish LNA antisense company Santaris, Art Levin, had just joined muscle microRNA Therapeutics company miRagen, I was alerted that this has been in the wake of a major shake-up at Santaris. Most notably, it appears that the CEO of Santaris, Soren Tulstrup, either handed in his resignation, or, more likely, was let go.
Privately-held Santaris, of course, has been a fierce rival ofISIS for supremacy in the
antisense space. Having former ISIS insider Art Levin join Santaris 2 1/2 years ago was in fact a bit of a coup for that company. Its LNA technology is
probably the most potent/high-affinity in the space for many applications. ISIS ,
however, has had the benefit of increased financial might and having built a
large patent estate that it is (ab-)using to sue, preferably smaller
competitors with the obvious intention of making it difficult, if not
impossible for those to raise capital and pursue business development opportunities. It is rumored that ‘partner’/satellite company Alnylam has probably paid the price in the tens of
millions for the privilege of going public.
Not long ago, ISIS sued Santaris for unduly hiding under the Research Exemption in its various relationships including Pfizer, Enzon, GSK, and Shire. In parallel,ISIS
and microRNA spin-off Regulus have been haunting Santaris by questioning
Santaris’ ability to develop its exciting lead candidate, miravirsen, a miR-122 antagonist
for the treatment of HCV. As a result, Santaris was dumped by GSK in favor of Regulus’ miR-122 program
despite having the superior data package, which is also born out by the clinical data so far (here for the latest update at EASL).
Regulus announced this week that it was awarded another HCV miR-122 patent, in Japan, concluding with the remark that it was continuing to pay 'attention to hepatitis C'- somewhat ironical given that its clinical entry seems to be delayed forever. Seeing that announcement, I had thought that this was one of the unnecessary PRs that I often take as a sign of weakness. In hindsight, it was probably just a case of adding insult to injury.
I myself have had reservations about the wisdom of building the company’s financial future on a program for which it may be lacking access to some of the key patents in the space. Although one may assume that in the wake of its scientifically leading efforts in miR-122/HCV, Santaris will have in turn built IP to which Regulus would need access if it were to develop its own miR-122 antagonist, such a strategy has been a high-stakes gamble for sure. Along with theISIS
lawsuit questioning Santaris’ fundamental business development strategy, I would therefore not be surprised if the CEO had faced some tough questions by Santaris' investors about his decisions and consequently was ousted.
Clearly, an exit in the form of an IPO or takeover had long been overdue for that company. The company’s technology, pipeline, and relationships, also in light of what’s out there already (i.e. ISIS and AVI Biopharma), should have easily supported this, if not for the lawsuit and threats thereof.
Privately-held Santaris, of course, has been a fierce rival of
Not long ago, ISIS sued Santaris for unduly hiding under the Research Exemption in its various relationships including Pfizer, Enzon, GSK, and Shire. In parallel,
Regulus announced this week that it was awarded another HCV miR-122 patent, in Japan, concluding with the remark that it was continuing to pay 'attention to hepatitis C'- somewhat ironical given that its clinical entry seems to be delayed forever. Seeing that announcement, I had thought that this was one of the unnecessary PRs that I often take as a sign of weakness. In hindsight, it was probably just a case of adding insult to injury.
I myself have had reservations about the wisdom of building the company’s financial future on a program for which it may be lacking access to some of the key patents in the space. Although one may assume that in the wake of its scientifically leading efforts in miR-122/HCV, Santaris will have in turn built IP to which Regulus would need access if it were to develop its own miR-122 antagonist, such a strategy has been a high-stakes gamble for sure. Along with the
Clearly, an exit in the form of an IPO or takeover had long been overdue for that company. The company’s technology, pipeline, and relationships, also in light of what’s out there already (i.e. ISIS and AVI Biopharma), should have easily supported this, if not for the lawsuit and threats thereof.
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