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AzurRx BioPharma aims to become a leader in developing non-systemic, recombinant protein therapies for the treatment of gastrointestinal diseases and related conditions. MS1819 recombinant lipase for exocrine pancreatic insufficiency is the lead development program with additional early stage research being conducted for the prevention of hospital-acquired infection. AzurRx BioPharma, Inc. is a recently founded private biotechnology company formed to focus on the development of the early stage pharmaceutical assets of ProteaBio Europe. The company is headquartered in New York, NY, with scientific operations based in Langlade, France.

Single cell research has been identified as essential to the discovery of effective new drugs. Our team at ARL Designs has developed the Nano-Droplet Array Plate, an entirely new approach that satisfies this unmet need for isolating and studying individual cells over time.  Key to the proven success of this technology is our unique surface structure which causes nano-droplets to self-align and entrap individual cells at precise locations in large, high-density arrays.  Low fabrication costs will help drive this technology into the rapidly expanding market for 3D cell culture.

MEBIAS holds a game-changing platform to discover next generation, pathway-selective GPCR drugs devoid of on-target side effects once thought to be unavoidable.

Summary

Assets

  • Fully validated in vitro and ex vivo assay suite correlating ligand-induced dynamic conformation of GPCR to pathway-specific signaling

  • Differentiated mu-opioid receptor pre-development candidates for the treatment of pain, plus backup molecules

Business Proposal

MEBIAS seeks capital to establish a NewCo:

  • To co-develop our mu-opioid drug candidate

  • To fund lead discovery of additional targets

Team

Shariff Bayoumy – Unique expertise in GPCR expression and purification; former head of Janssen gene‑to‑protein team on soluble and membrane proteins

Lawrence Kuo – Former head, Structural Biology (Janssen); former head, Enzymology and Structural Biology (Merck); core member of project teams for Crixivan™ and Stocrin™

Brett A. Tounge – Extensive expertise in designing drug like small molecules from hit discovery through NME declaration; former head of Janssen NMR team

Customer Problem

G-protein coupled receptor (GPCR) therapeutics exhibit significant on-target adverse effects that can be alleviated by developing pathway-selective/biased drugs. The clinical benefit to dial pathway selectivity into future GPCR drugs has been clearly established, but current discovery approaches in the pharma/biotech industry are inadequate to speedily design and develop biased drugs.

Target Market

With the downsizing of internal R&D in the pharma industry, there is a dire need for new discovery platforms and assets to help fill early pipelines. GPCR therapeutics comprise ~30% of current prescribed drugs with a global market of >USD100 billion and a projected growth of 20% by 2018.

Customer

Our immediate targeted customers will be pharma and biotech R&D. Our intention is to co-develop GPCR pathway-selective drugs to treat CNS, Metabolic, and Inflammatory related disorders. The pathway-selective GPCR landscape is wide open.

Business Model

The first round of funding from investors will be used to form a NewCo with the specific goal to discover and progress pre-development candidates for pathway-selective GPCR indications. In hand we hold differentiated mu-opioid receptor pre-development candidates for the treatment of pain. Revenues from the sale or partnering of our pre-clinical assets will fund new R&D efforts.

Competitive Advantage

Additional players in the GPCR pathway selectivity space are highly desirable to help advance clinical need in numerous disease areas. Given our experience and access to two key technologies – native GPCR purification and protein nuclear magnetic resonance – our approach offers unique advantages lacking in current methodologies (that employ only cell-based assays).  We have demonstrated our competitive advantage by successfully delivering a series of mu‑opioid receptor compounds among which is an NME-stage compound.