Nereus Pharmaceuticals
San Diego, California, United States (1988) | |
| Founder | Michael A. Palladino, Kobi M. Sethna, Stan Fleming, William Fenical |
|---|---|
| Headquarters | San Diego, California, United States |
Key people | Michael A. Palladino Ph.D.(Scientific Co-founder, SVP and Chief Technology Officer) Kobi M. Sethna (President, CEO)[1] Gary Shearman (Chairman of the Board)[2] G. |
Number of employees | 36[3] |
| Website | www.nereuspharm.com |
Nereus Pharmaceuticals was a
pharmaceutical company focused on the development of natural products from marine microbial and other natural sources into small molecule human therapeutics.[4] The major disease area addressed by Nereus is cancer. Nereus was purchased by Triphase Research and Development in 2012.[5]
Drug discovery
Until 2004, Nereus used methods licensed from the
Fungi.[4] Since 2004, the company has focused on commercializing identified bioactive natural products.[4] As of mid-2007, two compounds were being examined in Phase I clinical trials: NPI-2358 and NPI-0052.[4]
- Plinabulin (NPI-2358) is a halimide derivative, halimide itself having been isolated from a member of genus Aspergillus.[4][6] This compound appears to selectively disrupt tumour vasculature through interaction with microtubules.[4]
- NPI-1342 (Acanthoic Acid analog, NPI-1302a-3) is a plant derived orally active small molecule that targets the NF_kB transcript factor pathway. It is significantly active against cancer and inflammatory diseases and is being developed for clinical testing in multiple myeloma and glioblastoma.
- Salinosporamide A (NPI-0052) is a natural product of Salinispora tropica, a member of the bacterial family Micromonosporaceae that was first isolated in 2002 and taxonomically identified genetically in 2005.[7] NPI-0052 acts as a proteasome inhibitor.[4]
References
- ^ "Executive Team". Nereus Pharmaceuticals. Archived from the original on 2008-01-08. Retrieved 2008-01-20.
- ^ "Board of Directors". Nereus Pharmaceuticals. Archived from the original on 2008-01-08. Retrieved 2008-01-20.
- ^ "Company Overview". Nereus Pharmaceuticals. Archived from the original on 2008-01-08. Retrieved 2008-01-19.
Number of employees - 36
- ^ Mary Ann Liebert, Inc.Retrieved 2008-01-19.
Nereus mines microorganisms collected from the ocean to find new small molecule drug candidates, much like older pharmaceutical companies discovered new drugs by screening soil.
- ^ "Pharma commercial intelligence, news & analysis - Evaluate". www.evaluate.com.
- The Regents of the University of California
- PMID 16166663. Retrieved 2008-01-19.
Isolated from coarse sand off the Bahamas. The type strain is CNB-440T (=ATCC BAA-916T=DSM 44818T). (from Results & Discussion section)