More is unknown about psoriasis than is known. This skin disease, which affects 2% of the world’s population, is connected with the autoimmune system, and heredity is also a factor. The causes of psoriasis have not been discovered, but a significant correlation has been found between the disease and viral diseases and mental and physical tension.
In psoriasis, the cells responsible for creation and renewal of interior layers of skin undergo more intense mitosis. They do not mature properly; their development comes to a premature halt. This creates concentrations of immature and superfluous cells, which in turn causes the skin to thicken. The patient suffers from itching, reddening, scaly skin, and even pain. In severe cases, the disease covers a wide area of the body. Some patients suffer from limited movement in their joints and thickening of skin covering their joints.
There is no cure for psoriasis; treatment aims at relieving patients’ symptoms and improving the quality of their lives. There are several such treatments on the market. One involves tar-based lotions, which retard mitosis. Another common treatment is long exposure to sunlight, which can decrease the afflicted area, but has obvious drawbacks. The leading commercial lotion, which is of limited effectiveness, was developed 20 years ago by Danish company LEO Pharma. It includes a derivative of vitamin D, whose operating mechanism has not been solved. The most effective treatment uses steroids, which depress the immune system and mitosis. Doctors and patients, however, prefer not to use steroids, because of negative side effects that accumulate over a period of years.
”Dermipsor is a start-up operating in the Meytag Technology Incubator of the Office of the Chief Scientist. Dermipsor was founded on the basis of research conducted in the dermatology laboratory of Dana Children’s Hospital, attached to Ichilov Hospital,” says CEO Dr. Zeev Even-Chen. “Dr. Avikam Harel, the manager of the laboratory, examined a range of materials for treating the disease in the laboratory, and arrived at a derivative of vitamin B, called nicotinamide. It was demonstrated in research that adding nicotinamide to a derivative of vitamin D significantly increases the combined effect, compared with each of the materials used individually. A more effective treatment was obtained.”
Dermipsor doesn’t know exactly how its combination works, but by testing and improving its lotion, the company has arrived at the most active and effective ingredient. Harel, the company’s CTO, is a pediatrician and specialist in skin diseases. Even-Chen has 25 years of experience in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industry, including extensive experience in drug development and clinical trials in Israel, Europe, and the US. He was formerly VP regulation and clinical trials at Notal Vision, and also worked at Peptor, Sigma Israel, Biotechnology General (now part of Savient Pharmaceuticals (Nasdaq: SVNT)), and InterPharm Laboratories.
”First, we worked on fixed concentrations of nicotinamide and the vitamin D derivative, and added them to a large number of base lotions of varying composition,” Even-Chen says. “We first prepared the lotions on the basis of stability of the active ingredients in the lotions, through a accelerated stability trial, in which we spent six months testing the stability of the active ingredients under extreme conditions. This system simulates the 2-3 year shelf life needed for the lotion. The fact that we began with this significantly shortened the processes, since we saw that our materials were stable in only three base lotions.
”At this point, we switched to testing biological activity of the stable lotions, using a mouse-tail model commonly employed in psoriasis research. The mouse-tail trials showed that one base lotion was more effective than the other two, although the vitamin B and vitamin D content was identical in all three lotions examined.
”We then conducted another trial, in which examined the effect of varying concentrations of the vitamins with the same base lotion, and determined the most effective concentration. We are now testing this concentration on human beings. The human trials, which began on July 4, were designed to examine not only our lotion, but also to compare it with LEO Pharma’s existing lotion. We claim that our lotion is the most effective of those that do no include steroids.”
This clinical trials method, which eliminates many materials in advance, has both greatly shortened the process and cut its cost. The company predicts that it will require less than $20 million up until registration of the lotion at the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and in European countries.
Dermipsor doesn’t offer life saving treatment or develop a brand-new treatment. It offers an improved treatment for an unpleasant disease that detracts from patients’ quality of life. With such a minor story, it wasn’t expected that the company would attract a group of well known investors to add $240,000 to the $500,000 raised from the incubator.
Dermipsor’s investors include billionaire Noam Lanir, CEO of recently floated gambling website marketer Empire Online Ltd. (AIM: EOL), and Packard Bell co-founder Beny Alagem, who competed for the acquisition of Bezeq (TASE: BZEQ).
"Globes": Would it be wrong to say that some of the investors, or maybe their families, themselves suffer from psoriasis?
Even-Chen: ”To the best of my knowledge, that’s not the reason why they invested. The investors that you mentioned came by way of a personal acquaintance with Harel and belief in his work. Beyond that, the corresponding lotion made by LEO, which is of medium effectiveness, has annual sales in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Our lotion, which is expected to be much more effective, should have at least the same sales, or higher, while development is cheap, compared with the industry.”
Lanir: ”One of my company’s employees in Cyprus was a mother who suffered from psoriasis. I saw how the problem completely destroyed her life and the lives of her family. I heard about a treatment in Israel that helps with the disease, and they went to Israel for treatment: the treatment on which Dermipsor is based. Within a fairly short time, the woman came back to life. I don’t consider myself as an investor in companies. I’m an entrepreneur, but when I saw that this company really helps people change their lives, I wanted to help.”
Published by Globes [online] - www.globes.co.il - on September 7, 2005