Pharma

Minnesota firm divests other businesses to focus on developing a fibromyalgia drug

A Minnesota company that develop a compounds to boost energy in the body for medical applications and as dietary supplements announced Tuesday that it is divesting part of its business to become a pharmaceutical company.

 

A Minnesota company that is developing a compound to boost energy in the body for medical applications and for dietary supplements announced Tuesday that it is divesting part of its business to become a pharmaceutical company.

Bioenergy also announced that it is changing its name to RiboCor and moving its headquarters from Ham Lake to Minneapolis in a bid to develop a drug to treat fibromyalgia. RiboCor said that the company has sold its bulk ingredient business for dietary supplements and food and beverage use to Chengzhi Life Sciences Company, a China-based nutraceutical company.

The sale was for $18.3 million, said  Raj Khankari, RiboCor CEO, in a phone interview.

“It would be nice to be able to run all the businesses, but the amount of funds that are required to do clinical trials to develop a drug wouldn’t allow that,” he said.

RiboCor makes a compound based on a naturally occurring sugar in the human body called ribose. When the body is under stress — as in the case of a patient suffering from fibromyalgia — the amount of energy that is created is just not enough, Khankari explained. But if the ribose compound is supplied externally, it boosts energy production in the body.

“You can get energy at the exact time that is needed,” he said.

Currently, RiboCor is enrolling patients in a double blind, placebo-controlled study under an investigational new drug application granted by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Khankari said the phase 2 trials are expected to be complete by the end of the year.

Fibromyalgia affects 5.8 million Americans and Khankari noted that current treatments for the disorder– including Pfizer’s Lyrica —  focus on pain management rather than on fatigue.

“Our compound is targeted to treat fatigue and so would not be in competition with those products, it would be complementary to them” he said.

RibCor also plans to develop drugs for cardiovascular diseases.

[Photo Credit: David Castillo Dominici]

 

 

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