One year after announcing positive data in a Phase 2 Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) trial and scrapping a merger with Apex Bioventures Corp, market conditions have consumed another victim: Dynogen. The company had been focusing on developing 5HT agonists for IBS and GERD, but despite decent data, they were unable to get a deal done.

This week, they filed to liquidate under Chapter 7 of the U.S. bankruptcy code. In the six years they were alive, Dynogen managed to eat up $67M of venture money. In their filing they reported assets worth $18,393 – office furniture, computers, etc.

Sad sad sad…

One of the reasons the company probably never took off was because of the mechanism behind its lead products – 5HT modulation. Novartis’ Zelnorm, a gastrointestinal prokinetic that works by agonizing the 5HT receptor, was pulled from the market in 2007 after the FDA found evidence of a relationship between prescriptions of the drug and increased risks of heart attack or stroke.

Propulsid, another GI motility drug that worked through 5HT modulation, was also removed in 2000 due to prolonged QT intervals.

Lesson: 5HT modulation in the gut = bad news for the heart.

Any investor or big pharma would immediately see these red flags (we hope).

Of course, Dynogen’s ultimate loser is not the CEO (Lee Brettman, pictured right) and management, but its investors:

*HealthCare Venture (owned 20%)

*Oxford Bioscience Partners (20%)

*SV Life Sciences (13%)

*Abingworth Management (11%)

*Atlas Venture (9%)

*Pappas Ventures (8%)

Welcome to The Graveyard, baby…

Images from dynogen.com and masshightech

Related Posts