Dr. Bernd Seizinger
GPC Biotech
TITLE: CEO
RESIDENCE: Princeton and Munich, Germany
EDUCATION: earned an M.D. from Ludwig Maximilians University and a Ph.D. from the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry, both in Munich, before attending Harvard Medical School.
THUMBNAIL SKETCH: Dr. Seizinger has served as executive vice president and chief scientific officer at Genome Therapeutics Corp. in Waltham, Mass. He also worked at Bristol-Myers Squibb in Lawrence and was associate professor of neuroscience at Harvard Medical School as well as associate geneticist and director of the Molecular Neuro-Oncology Laboratory at Massachusetts General Hospital. He’s also held a visiting professorship at Princeton University.
Why is GPC Biotech focused on anti-cancer drugs?
Oncology is one of the fastest-growing segments of the drug market. In 1996, the oncology market was valued at less than $6 billion; today the estimate for 2004 is at more than $16 billion. What also makes oncology attractive is that the clinical development timeline and costs can be considerably lower than other research areas and you can receive approval through smaller clinical studies.
How large is GPC’s U.S. presence?
After establishing itself in Germany, the company wanted to position itself to get a strong foothold in the United States, since it is the major pharmaceutical market. In 2000, we acquired Mitotix, a biotech company in Cambridge, Mass., which accelerated our oncology program and contributed to GPC Biotech’s successful initial public offering. In 2001, I persuaded Dr. Marcel Rozencweig, a renowned clinical oncologist in the United States, who I worked with at Bristol-Myers Squibb, to come to GPC Biotech. Marcel was based in Princeton, so we decided to expand the small office we already had in Princeton and established the headquarters of our clinical development team there.
Why do you believe your company’s lead drug candidate, satraplatin, is so promising?
Satraplatin is the first platinum compound to be given orally. Normally, other platinums for chemotherapy are given through an infusion procedure. Often platinums are used in combination with radiation, but logistically it’s difficult. Chemotherapy is given in an infusion suite, then you have to travel to radiation in another area. Satraplatin could allow you to get the optimum combination of the two treatments a pill could be given while in radiation. In addition, it is the only platinum compound to show efficacy in a randomized clinical trial for prostate cancer.
What other products are in the pipeline?
We have a monoclonal antibody against lymphoid tumors. The antibody can directly kill tumor cells and doesn’t require a functional immune system. We believe it can be used in combination with other drugs. In animal models our antibody has been shown to increase the efficacy of rituxan, a drug given to people with non-Hodgkins lymphoma. Many patients with non-Hodgkins lymphoma are resistant to rituxan, and others become resistant after treatment. We expect to first test our antibody in patients resistant to rituxan. We plan to initiate clinical trials in three to six months.
Our other candidate is a cell cycle inhibitor. The cell cycle the division of one cell into two daughter cells and so forth is a key cellular process that fails to function normally with cancer. One thing that makes our inhibitor unique is that it kills cells that are dividing as well as resting tumor cells. The cause of most major cancers lung, prostate, breast cancer is a combination of both resting and dividing cells. Most treatments today only affect dividing cells, addressing only half the problem. We expect to go to clinical trial in about 12 months.
What do you see as the key to GPC Biotech’s continued success?
Today we have about $170 million in cash and equivalents and have a controlled burn rate. Alliances, like with ALTANA Pharma in Germany, have helped us create alternate revenue sources to help fund our own pipeline. We plan to compliment our internal drug discovery and development with in-licensing as well. It’s a matter of balancing innovation and risk. We’re still a work in progress, but we’re on track and I expect the next year will be exciting for our company and our investors.