Start-up drug firm in 3-way merger
The new company, Opko, will develop eye drugs.
A Philadelphia start-up, Acuity Pharmaceuticals, has merged with a small private Florida firm and a publicly traded shell company to develop drugs for serious eye diseases.
The combined company, called Opko Corp., will be based in Miami and led by Phillip Frost, the former chairman and chief executive officer of Miami-based Ivax Corp., a maker of generic drugs acquired by Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. in 2006.
Frost will be Opko's chairman and CEO. Dale R. Pfost, Acuity's chairman and CEO, will be president of Opko.
Acuity, founded on technology licensed from the University of Pennsylvania and its Scheie Eye Institute in late 2002, has merged with Froptix Corp., which had licensed therapies for retinal and macular degeneration from the University of Florida.
Publicly traded eXenegics Inc., of Pittsford, N.Y., currently has no active operations. Previously, it developed drugs to treat cancer and infectious disease.
As part of the transaction, the Frost Group, a private-equity group headed by Phillip Frost, gave Opko a $12 million line of credit. Those proceeds and $16 million in cash from eXegenics will be used to fund a late-stage Phase 3 trial of Acuity's lead gene-silencing drug, bevasiranib, as a maintenance therapy for wet age-related macular degeneration in combination with Lucentis, a Genentech Inc. drug.
The publicly traded eXegenics was "the vehicle in which both Acuity and Froptix joined forces in this three-way merger to form the new company," Pfost said in an interview.
"The really exciting thing for us, as we were out there seeking financing, was that the $16 million in cash, as well as the $12 million line of credit from the Frost Group, gives us sufficient funds to move forward for the upcoming Phase 3 trials later this year," he said.
Located at the Science Center in University City, Acuity has 16 full-time employees and raised $24 million in venture capital since 2002. The combined company may keep a research office in Philadelphia.
Opko plans to list on the American Stock Exchange.
"It's very great news for what was Acuity and Froptix, and very good news for the shareholders," Pfost said. "And I think it's a major step forward for treating patients who are suffering from diseases threatening their vision."