The Hindu Business Line : VLife completes pre-clinical trials for diabetic wound drug

Mumbai, Nov. 1 VLife Sciences, a technology-enabled drug discovery company based in Pune, has said that it has successfully completed the pre-clinical trials of ‘Galnobax’, for diabetic wounds.

This small molecule investigational drug will deliver 42 per cent improvement in the time taken to cure wounds in diabetic patients, claimed the company’s management. “If successful in the clinical trials, Galnobax would address the desperate need of over 250 million diabetic patients targeting a revenue size exceeding $5 billion worldwide,” said Mr Supreet Deshpande, Founder of VLife. “We plan to begin the clinical trial for Galnobax in the first half of 2008 and if all goes well, Galnobax will be available to patients by 2011,” he said.

Demerge research division

Following the success on Galnobax, the company’s board decided to demerge its research division into a separate company called NovaLead Pharma. The company will soon announce a cancer drug which will soon be ready for trials, Mr Deshpande said.

Over the next two years, NovaLead will invest over $20 million to develop Galnobax and the company’s lead compound in cancer which expects a market potential of over $ 10 billion, he said. Galnobax’s animal trials established its ability to induce new tissue formation, claimed Dr Sudhir Kulkarni, Principal Scientist at Vlife. “Galnobax would be one of the first small molecule drugs for diabetic wound,” said Dr Krishna Menon, Scientific Advisor to Vlife who is the co-inventor of cancer drugs Gemzar and Alimta of Eli Lilly & Co.

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