What's
Nex? Addrenex Founders Sell Neuronex
Submitted by jshamp on Thu, 2012-02-16 17:04
You always gotta wonder what’s “nex” with Moise Khayrallah, Ph.D., and his company-building comrades.
They just announced today at the 2012 CED Life Science Conference that they’ve sold their second biotech company, Neuronex, in a multi-million-dollar merger agreement with New York-based Acorda – even as Khayrallah and team focus on building Aerial BioPharma, their third new drug company, also in Morrisville.
Khayrallah led the team that built Durham’s Addrenex Pharmaceuticals to a successful drug company in only three years. The North Carolina Biotechnology Center helped them bootstrap Addrenex in 2006 with a $25,000 start-up loan and a $135,000 Small Business Research Loan (SRL).
Good call. They sold Addrenex for $29 million in late 2009 to Shionogi & Co. of Japan.
So Khayrallah and his former Addrenex colleagues Stephen Butts, MBA, Gary Bream, Ph.D., David Ward, M.D., Karen Adams and Paul Ketreridge, R.Ph., formed Neuronex in 2010. The company aimed at developing an epilepsy drug and related therapies targeting several central nervous system disorders.
Nearly $500K in Biotech Center loans
This time, the Biotech Center provided a $248,886 SRL to help the company with formulation development and manufacturing to support a Phase I clinical trial for the experimental epilepsy drug it had acquired.
In 2011 the Center also provided Neuronex a $250,000 Strategic Growth Loan (SGL) to help the company test its therapy against another epilepsy drug already on the market.
The research loan program helps fund research to advance development of commercially viable technologies or products.
The growth loan program helps young companies bridge the early-stage funding gap that many North Carolina biotechnology companies face, since banks don’t make such loans.
Beyond the Biotech Center loans, Neuronex had also raised millions in angel investment.
Well-respected Triangle entrepreneur
Khayrallah is a respected figure in North Carolina’s constantly growing life-science landscape. He earned his doctorate in psychology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and his pharmaceutical-industry stripes leading clinical programs from 1987 to 1996 for Burroughs Wellcome and later Glaxo Wellcome.
Glaxo Wellcome became GlaxoSmithKline in 2000, the world’s third-largest pharmaceutical company, with North American headquarters at its Research Triangle Park campus.
Khayrallah had a spring in his step and a twinkle in his eye as he greeted his many friends among the nearly 1,000 atttending the two-day Life Science Conference ending today at the Raleigh Convention Center.
“It takes perseverance,” he confided with a grin. “It’s getting rough out there. This took a lot longer to consummate this deal than I expected.”
But he’s obviously not giving up the hunt for the next opportunity. And he and his team obviously have the chops to breathe life into newborn bioscience companies.
Submitted by jshamp on Thu, 2012-02-16 17:04
You always gotta wonder what’s “nex” with Moise Khayrallah, Ph.D., and his company-building comrades.
They just announced today at the 2012 CED Life Science Conference that they’ve sold their second biotech company, Neuronex, in a multi-million-dollar merger agreement with New York-based Acorda – even as Khayrallah and team focus on building Aerial BioPharma, their third new drug company, also in Morrisville.
Khayrallah led the team that built Durham’s Addrenex Pharmaceuticals to a successful drug company in only three years. The North Carolina Biotechnology Center helped them bootstrap Addrenex in 2006 with a $25,000 start-up loan and a $135,000 Small Business Research Loan (SRL).
Good call. They sold Addrenex for $29 million in late 2009 to Shionogi & Co. of Japan.
So Khayrallah and his former Addrenex colleagues Stephen Butts, MBA, Gary Bream, Ph.D., David Ward, M.D., Karen Adams and Paul Ketreridge, R.Ph., formed Neuronex in 2010. The company aimed at developing an epilepsy drug and related therapies targeting several central nervous system disorders.
Nearly $500K in Biotech Center loans
This time, the Biotech Center provided a $248,886 SRL to help the company with formulation development and manufacturing to support a Phase I clinical trial for the experimental epilepsy drug it had acquired.
In 2011 the Center also provided Neuronex a $250,000 Strategic Growth Loan (SGL) to help the company test its therapy against another epilepsy drug already on the market.
The research loan program helps fund research to advance development of commercially viable technologies or products.
The growth loan program helps young companies bridge the early-stage funding gap that many North Carolina biotechnology companies face, since banks don’t make such loans.
Beyond the Biotech Center loans, Neuronex had also raised millions in angel investment.
Well-respected Triangle entrepreneur
Khayrallah is a respected figure in North Carolina’s constantly growing life-science landscape. He earned his doctorate in psychology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and his pharmaceutical-industry stripes leading clinical programs from 1987 to 1996 for Burroughs Wellcome and later Glaxo Wellcome.
Glaxo Wellcome became GlaxoSmithKline in 2000, the world’s third-largest pharmaceutical company, with North American headquarters at its Research Triangle Park campus.
Khayrallah had a spring in his step and a twinkle in his eye as he greeted his many friends among the nearly 1,000 atttending the two-day Life Science Conference ending today at the Raleigh Convention Center.
“It takes perseverance,” he confided with a grin. “It’s getting rough out there. This took a lot longer to consummate this deal than I expected.”
But he’s obviously not giving up the hunt for the next opportunity. And he and his team obviously have the chops to breathe life into newborn bioscience companies.
