IPO Watch: Elixir Pharmaceuticals

Many of the illnesses that scourge our population are simply related to aging. We can survive so many of the things that killed our ancestors before they turned 40 that now, as we keep going decades longer, we suffer from metabolic breakdowns: diabetes, obesity, and ordinary old age. The easiest way to avoid these conditions is to die young, but that’s not really the best option. Elixir Pharmaceuticals, Inc. has no products on the market yet, but it has several in its R&D pipeline that could be interesting. Two compounds, Glinsuna and Metgluna, are both designed to treat Type 2 diabetes. Both are in Phase III clinical trials (to test safety and efficacy in clinical use), and the company hopes to have enough data to submit for approval in 2009. Other products, for diabetes, obesity, opioid-induced bowel dysfunction, and Huntington’s disease, are further behind in the process but could lead to a string of products into the next decade.

With no products for sale, it’s no surprise that Elixir has no revenue and lost about $20 million in 2006. This offering will give the company funding to continue its research and, it is hoped, to bring Glinsuna and Metgluna to market. It has a smart group of experienced health care venture capitalists on board: ARCH Ventures, MPM Capital, Oxford Bioscience and Physic Ventures. It’s a gamble, though: the company seems to have the right people in place and is looking at products that address huge market needs, but there’s no guarantee that anything will work properly, receive FDA approval, and interest doctors enough to write prescriptions.

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