Tech startup of the month.

• Author: Peterson, Eric
• Position: Replidyne Inc.

Replidyne Inc., Louisville

www.replidyne.com

ROUNDED: DECEMBER 2000.

INITIAL LIGHTBULB: "There's a real problem with antibacterial antibiotics," explained Charles McHenry, Ph.D., Replidyne's chief scientific officer. "The development of new ones was ignored for a long period of time by the large pharmaceutical companies. There were a number of effective antibacterials that were working well, and the logic was, 'We're covered.'"

While big pharma was resting on its laurels, however, bacteria were doing anything but. After decades of exposure to the same drugs, mutant strains have emerged "that are resistant to every clinically available antibacterial," McHenry said.

As a professor at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center in Denver, McHenry has long been aware of this dilemma, and his academic background led him to envision a class of next-generation antibacterial drugs that would inhibit the process of DNA replication. "This (DNA) machinery is absolutely essential for the propagation of cells," McHenry said. "It occurred to all of us ... that we could screen a huge number of compounds against the replication system and find a way to block it."

With this goal in mind, McHenry teamed with Nebojsa Janjic, Ph.D., who had previously worked in drug discovery at NeXstar, to develop a business plan for Replidyne. The pair quickly realized the need for more business acumen and recruited Kenneth Collins, who had been consulting for biotech startups for several years, as Replidyne's president and CEO. Janjic is vice president of research and development.

IN A NUTSHELL: Replidyne's technology will first be put to work to screen compounds for their efficacy in inhibiting the DNA replication process. "We'll identify' initial 'hits,' as they're called, off of the screen" said Janjic. "Then we will optimize the properties of those compounds." Replidyne will then put each potential antibacterial under a pre-clinical microscope to ensure they don't inhibit the replication of human DNA before moving into costly clinical trials. The objective is to develop an antibacterial drug that will fight a broad spectrum of pathogens, including E. coli and staphococcus. "The clinical indications that we will go against will be largely determined by what comes out of our screens," said McHenry. "We're not counting anything out right now."

The antibacterial category "is a space that's attractive because the predictability of developing drugs is somewhat higher"...