It's Nature's way of growing a business.

• Position: EpiGenesis Pharmaceuticals Inc.'s EpiGenRx featured in Nature magazine

You'd think having a paper on its product printed in a prestigious science journal would bring a budding drug company instant fame and fortune. Fame maybe. But fortune, if it ever comes, takes a while.

Greenville-based EpiGenesis Pharmaceuticals Inc. has enjoyed its 15 minutes since the Feb. 20 issue of Nature appeared. Companies like Merck and Glaxo Wellcome have been calling almost daily. Founder Jonathan Nyce attended a conference where the moderator showed a slide of a major new discovery: "Our Nature paper," he boasts.

Nyce wrote the piece with James Metzger, director of East Carolina University's Asthma and Allergy Center. It explains how their new compound reduced lung inflammation and cleared airways in rabbits. EpiGenRx could be the one drug to replace several that asthma patients now take. That's still a long way out there - there's no proof the compound works in humans.

EpiGenesis hopes to find a big drug company to pay for the testing and eventually set up a licensing agreement. Since the Nature paper appeared, it's heard from 25 companies and in late April was starting serious talks with four. "We didn't have...