Velcura’s approach to partnerships centers on a critical unmet need: the discovery of therapies that stimulate bone formation, and is tightly dovetailed with our intellectual property strategy. The current status of bone disease/fracture therapies is hindered by a number of problems. These are (1) With few exceptions (e.g., Eli Lilly’s Forteo™), all current therapies and most R&D focus on the inhibition of bone resorption, (2) The use of non-human tissue results in poor prediction of clinical response, and (3) Current bone therapy discovery models are too long and expensive.

Velcura is solely focused on developing therapies that stimulate bone formation. These therapies thus restore the dynamic equilibrium between bone formation and resorption. Strategically, this means that Velcura:

• Identifies novel genes and pathways involved in bone growth.
  
• Discovers novel molecular targets that promote bone growth
  
• Works with strategic partners for drug discovery and/or development.

Essentially, Velcura’s assays (referred to as Velcura’s Human Bone Therapy System; HBTS) are designed to accelerate the discovery of bone disease therapies. Typically, the pharmaceutical R&D development pipeline is a lengthy and expensive process, taking up to 15 yeas and costing over $700 million to place a compound on the market. Moreover, for osteoporosis compounds such as Fosamax that generate in excess of $500 Million per year in sales, ever day saved in R&D is worth over $1 million in sales. Velcura’s HBTS conservatively shortens the R&D timeline by 1 to 2 years. This is made possible by the consequences of using a unique human bone cell based system that allows a:

• Dramatic increase in speed and target relevance compared to existing bone disease approaches.
  
• Lower cost and greater predictability for therapy discovery.
  
• Dramatic expansion in breadth of compounds screened; Increased probability of finding lead compound.
  
• Use of the assay as surrogate marker in lead optimization and potentially clinical trials.

Therefore, there is a sharp contrast between Velcura’s HBTS that it offers to its strategic partners and those available to the industry. The traditional approach is hindered by its low predictability, slowness and high-costs, whereas Velcura uniquely utilizes human bone forming cells in a rapid, reliable and physiologically relevant setting. Velcura Therapeutics thus partners with large biotechnology and pharmaceutical firms that have an interest in bone therapies. These firms thus benefit greatly from our technologies as they greatly accelerate the bone therapy R&D process.


For information please contact:

Michael Long, Ph.D.
President and CEO
734-973-1000
mwlong@velcura.com