Neurobiological Technologies, Inc. ("NTI") was a biotechnology company that was founded in 1987 by

Enoch Callaway Enoch "Noch" Callaway III (July 12, 1924 – August 18, 2014) was an American psychiatrist and a pioneer in biological psychiatry. Biography Callaway was born on July 12, 1924, into an old southern family of doctors in La Grange, Georgia. He i ...

and John B. Stuppin to in-license and develop drugs primarily to treat neurological conditions; the company was dissolved in 2009 after the failure of its drug candidate

ancrod Ancrod (current brand name: Viprinex) is a defibrinogenating agent derived from the venom of the Malayan pit viper. Defibrinogenating blood produces an anticoagulant effect. Ancrod is not approved or marketed in any country. It is a thrombin-lik ...

in a Phase III trial for

ischemic stroke A stroke is a medical condition in which poor blood flow to the brain causes cell death. There are two main types of stroke: ischemic, due to lack of blood flow, and hemorrhagic, due to bleeding. Both cause parts of the brain to stop functionin ...

. NTI-Children's license is included in the filing. The company pursued a

virtual company A virtual business (short: virtubis) employs electronic means to transact business as opposed to a traditional brick and mortar business that relies on face-to-face transactions with physical documents and physical currency or credit. History Ama ...

model from the beginning, keeping staff as small as possible and outsourcing tasks to

contract research organizations In the life sciences, a contract research organization (CRO) is a company that provides support to the pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and medical device industries in the form of research services outsourced on a contract basis. A CRO may provid ...

and contract manufacturing organizations. At the time the company made its first public offering in 1996, it had three products in development:

memantine Memantine is a medication used to slow the progression of moderate-to-severe Alzheimer's disease. It is taken by mouth. Common side effects include headache, constipation, sleepiness, and dizziness. Severe side effects may include blood clots ...

, a small molecule for neuropathic pain and AIDS-related dementia,

corticotropin-releasing factor Corticotropin-releasing factor family, CRF family is a family of related neuropeptides in vertebrates. This family includes corticotropin-releasing hormone (also known as CRF), urotensin-I, urocortin, and sauvagine. The family can be grouped int ...

, a

biopharmaceutical A biopharmaceutical, also known as a biological medical product, or biologic, is any pharmaceutical drug product manufactured in, extracted from, or semisynthesized from biological sources. Different from totally synthesized pharmaceuticals, t ...

to treat edema caused by brain tumors and inflammation caused by

rheumatoid arthritis Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a long-term autoimmune disorder that primarily affects joints. It typically results in warm, swollen, and painful joints. Pain and stiffness often worsen following rest. Most commonly, the wrist and hands are involv ...

, and

dynorphin A Dynorphin A is a dynorphin, an endogenous opioid peptide with the amino acid sequence: Tyr-Gly-Gly-Phe-Leu-Arg-Arg-Ile-Arg-Pro-Lys-Leu-Lys. Dynorphin A1–8 is a truncated form of dynorphin A with the amino acid sequence: Tyr-Gly-Gly-Phe-Leu-Ar ...

, a biopharmaceutical to treat pain. It licensed patents covering methods to use memantine from

Children's Hospital of Boston Boston Children's Hospital formerly known as Children's Hospital Boston until 2012 is a nationally ranked, freestanding acute care Pediatrics, children's hospital located in Boston, Massachusetts, adjacent both to its teaching affiliate, Harvard ...

in 1995. In 1997 the company hired Paul Frieman as its CEO—Frieman was an experienced executive who had sold his biotech company three years before for $5.4B. Frieman cut staff from 23 people to 9, and in 1998 amended NTI's agreement with Children's Hospital of Boston to allow the German company

Merz Pharma Merz Pharma GmbH & Co. KGaA is a privately-held pharmaceutical company based in Frankfurt, Germany with affiliates across Europe, as well as the US, Canada, Mexico, Brazil and Asia Pacific and regional headquarters in Singapore and North Carolina ...

, which had been marketing memantine in Europe for dementia since 1989 and was running similar clinical trials to those run by NTI, to take over development. Merz paid NTI $2.1M upfront and agreed to pay both NTI and Children's Hospital royalties. In 2000 Merz partnered with

Forest Laboratories Forest Laboratories was a company in the pharmaceutical industry incorporated in Delaware, with its principal office in New York City. It was known for licensing European pharmaceuticals for sale in the United States. On July 1, 2014, the compan ...

to further develop memantine, and NTI received about $8 million from the upfront payment. That money covered the approximately $5 million that NTI had put into development of memantine. In 2004 NTI acquired Empire Pharmaceuticals, which had one product:

(Viprinex). Empire had been formed by former employees of

Knoll Pharmaceuticals Knoll Pharmaceuticals was a drug development company founded by Albert Knoll and Hans Knoll in Germany in 1886. The company was taken over by German BASF in 1975, which sold it to Abbott Laboratories on 30 June 2002 for $6.9 billion. It was the de ...

, the German company that had discovered and started developing ancrod, and had acquired the rights to ancrod in 2002, after Knoll's acquisition by

Abbott Laboratories Abbott Laboratories is an American multinational medical devices and health care company with headquarters in Abbott Park, Illinois, United States. The company was founded by Chicago physician Wallace Calvin Abbott in 1888 to formulate known dr ...

in 2001. NTI also acquired a batch of unpurified venom in the acquisition, and had that purified for use in its clinical trials. Ancrod became NTI's lead product; in 2006 Frieman estimated annual sales $500 million to $1 billion. The company collapsed when a Phase III trial of ancrod was halted early in December 2008 when an independent review committee looked at the interim data and found no signal of benefit. One of its main investors was the Biotechnology Value Fund, which put pressure on the company to dissolve and pay out its investors. It cut staff in early 2009, then sought to sell off its assets, and finally dissolved in August 2009. The company's CEOs were: *1991 to 1997: Jeffrey S. Price; prior to joining NTI he had been with

Cetus Corporation Cetus Corporation was one of the first biotechnology companies. It was established in Berkeley, California, in 1971, but conducted most of its operations in nearby Emeryville. Before merging with Chiron Corporation in 1991 (now a part of Novarti ...

and then with

Chiron Corporation Chiron Corporation ( ) was an American multinational biotechnology firm founded in 1981, based in Emeryville, California, that was acquired by Novartis on April 20, 2006. It had offices and facilities in eighteen countries on five continents. C ...

*1997 to 2009: Paul Frieman; he had been CEO of Syntex *2009: William Fletcher, formerly with Teva

References

External links

* {{cite news, title=Enoch Callaway's Obituary, url=http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/sfgate/obituary.aspx?pid=172371607, work=San Francisco Chronicle, date=September 7, 2014 Defunct companies based in the San Francisco Bay Area Biotechnology companies established in 1987 Biotechnology companies disestablished in 2009 1987 establishments in California 2009 disestablishments in California Callaway family