Metabasis focused on moving pipeline toward commercialization

By Jennifer Lanning Drey

Eugene, Ore., July 11 - Metabasis Therapeutics, Inc.'s primary focus is now to develop and push its product pipeline toward the marketplace, said Paul Laikind, chief executive officer of Metabasis, at the C.E. Unterberg Emerging Growth Opportunities Conference on Tuesday.

"The discovery research part [of the company] is not growing. We're growing the development team at this point," Laikind said.

The company has five internally discovered development-stage products that it will work to advance throughout the rest of the year, Laikind said.

"The products we're developing are targeting major market opportunities. We've really looked to the future in building this company so we've been very strategic in how we move these products forward," he said.

The company recently completed a phase 2b clinical trial of pradefovir, a treatment for hepatitis C, and is gearing up to take the drug into a phase 3 clinical trial in the first half of 2007, Laikind said.

In the phase 2b clinical trail of pradefovir, 71% of the 242 patients who were studied for 48 weeks had undetectable amounts of the virus.

"The data looks very good. This is a very low risk compound from the development side," Laikind said.

The company is also is also developing CS-917, a new mechanism of action that is being studied as a first line therapy for diabetes patients in a phase 2b clinical trial.

"Assuming this study works well, then next year we could see this one going into phase 3," Laikind said.

The company is developing CS-917 with Daiichi-Sankyo.

In addition, Metabasis is developing a second-generation compound, MB-7803, which uses the same mechanism as CS-917, but has other differences that the company has not disclosed.

"It's a second generation compound. We think it has some improvements over 917, both being good drugs, but a big improvement for us is we own all the rights to this one," said Laikind.

The company has completed its first phase 1 clinical study of MB-7803 and will look to get proof of concept on it next year, Laikind said.

Metabasis is also currently finishing a phase 1 study of MB07133, which targets production of a potential oncolytic agent to the liver and primary liver tumors.

The company is preparing to discuss the next step for the program with the Food and Drug Administration.

"We hope it's moving into a phase 2/3 type study," said Laikind.

In addition, the company is preparing to file a New Drug Application for an earlier stage product, MB07811 for treatment of hyperlipidemia.

Metabasis plans to have MB07811 in the clinic by the end of the year, Laikind said.

"We're quite excited about this program. Obviously, it's still early in the sense that we're just getting it into the clinic, but in this type of drug we can look for efficacy rather quickly," he said.

Metabasis is a San Diego-based biopharmaceutical company focused on the discovery, development and commercialization of novel drugs to address chronic diseases involving pathways in the liver.

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