Jump to full article: Business Journal of the Greater Triad Area, 2001-11-26
Author: Doug Campbell / The Business Journal / From the November 23, 2001 print edition
Intro: Biotech startup Targacept Inc. may consider developing a treatment for nerve gas attacks.
CEO Don deBethizy said the project got started last month when Tommy Thompson, the U.S. secretary of health and human services, implored a gathering of 200 biotech CEOs to develop vaccines and other treatments for bioterrorist attacks.
DeBethizy was among the CEOs at a meeting in southern California and he is now in the process of getting in contact with Thompson to discuss laying out a research plan.
"Whenever you get an opportunity like this where there's a national need, it's important to at least apply what you know to do what you can," deBethizy said.
Targacept was spun-out of R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. last summer. It grew from the cigarette maker's years of research into nicotine. Targacept is developing drugs that focus on the central nervous system and deal with, specifically, so-called nicotinic receptors.
The company's lead compounds are for treating Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases and ulcerative colitis. They are undergoing clinical trials and could be on the market as soon as 2005. The same principles used in developing those compounds may be transferable to nerve gas attacks, deBethizy said.
Jump to full article » |