Galleon Pharmaceuticals in suburban Philadelphia has raised $10 million to help discover medicines to treat breathing control conditions like sleep apnea and COPD.
Started in 2003 by CEO and President James C. Mannion, the Horsham, Pennsylvania, company also is targeting treatments for ventilator weaning, drug-induced respiratory depression and obesity-related hypoventilation — all conditions in which breathing control has been disrupted.
Mannion has spent 25 years in the pharmaceuticals industry, holding everything from clinical development positions at Burroughs Wellcome and Beecham (now part of GlaxoSmithKline); to business unit development, management and corporate venture capital jobs at Durham, North Carolina, contract research organization Quintiles.
Early this year, he received a patent for a combination drug that includes S-Nitrosothiol, a compound involved in several steps of the breathing process. S-Nitrosothiol can trigger the body’s normal response to low oxygen levels, causing increases in the rate and depth of breathing.It appears that sleep apnea is a primary therapeutic target for the drug.
Ventilators and positive airway pressure devices have been used to treat patients who have lost normal breathing rhythms, but several drugs have been proposed to solve the problem in less disruptive ways.
In 2006, Galleon licensed the underlying technology for its drugs from the University of Louisville (pdf), where it was discovered by Dr. David Gozal, professor and vice chair of research in the Pediatrics Department of the university’s medical school.
Galleon, which seems to be operating in stealth mode, closed a $15 million B Round (pdf) in December 2008, raising money from investors like Morgenthaler Ventures. Morgenthaler Partner Ralph E. Christoffersen holds a board seat at Galleon.
A Deep-dive Into Specialty Pharma
A specialty drug is a class of prescription medications used to treat complex, chronic or rare medical conditions. Although this classification was originally intended to define the treatment of rare, also termed “orphan” diseases, affecting fewer than 200,000 people in the US, more recently, specialty drugs have emerged as the cornerstone of treatment for chronic and complex diseases such as cancer, autoimmune conditions, diabetes, hepatitis C, and HIV/AIDS.
The drug developer launched with a $500,000 seed investment (pdf) from BioAdvance Biotechnology Greenhouse of Southeastern Pennsylvania in 2005. An email to Mannion was not immediately returned.
