By Shawn Lawrence
INNOVATOR
Chlorion Pharma
Spinning out A highly contested topic of late in biotech is which business model works best for biotech companies. One model that seems to be generating a lot of debate is the value of university spin-offs or spin-outs. Count Dr. Jeffrey Coull, CEO and president of Chlorion Pharma among those who believe in the merits of such a model. Interestingly enough, Chlorion Pharma is a university spin out company whose primary focus is in neurology and the development of novel classes of therapies to restore the normal functioning neurons and other cells. 18 BIOTECHNOLOGY FOCUS FEBRUARY 2010
Success “I always hear people say it just doesn’t happen anymore, the idea of a successful university spin-out. Often they ask is it even possible to spin-out? I keep saying yeah it is and that more people should be doing it especially here in Canada where there’s lots of great science,” states Coull. He adds that the dynamics of success are still the same in the spin-out model, beginning with having the right vision, the right strategy, assembling the right team and of course, raising the capital needed in a timely manner. “It’s all about marrying good technology with a great managerial team,” he says, adding that the first element to success: the technology, can be easily found in our universities but the latter part, i.e. finding the right team and raising capital, is definitely a little more challenging. “It takes time to put together all these elements to produce a successful spin out, but it is still possible,” he says. Coull speaks from experience, after all while it took close to seven years for him and his two co-founders to get Chlorion to where
it is today , it is now a company backed by good science and an experienced management team. The story of Chlorion begins in 2002 in Quebec City, when Coull along with Drs. Martin Gagnon and Yves De Koninck discovered in a Laval University lab, that in conditions of neuropathic pain, the co-transporter KCC2 was dysfunctional in pain-related neurons in the spinal cord. Specifically, KCC2, which normally pumps chloride out of neurons, was discovered to be not operating at full efficiency allowing chloride to accumulate in the cell, increasing hypersensitivity (see Coull et al., Nature, 2003 and 2005). “Say you have nerve injury in your arm or leg, it sends a signal to your spinal cord, which causes this shift whereby the neuro gate that normally prevents touch related information from being perceived as pain in its normal state, goes to being perceived as pain in the pain centres of the brain after trauma,” he explains. “From the very beginning, we wanted to understand what things contribute to that neuronal gate swinging open.”. In trying to understand why neurons in
