GROTON, Conn. (Sept. 25, 2005) – LifePharms, Inc., has received approval for the second phase of a 2 year, $903,000 Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant from the National Institutes of Health’s National Cancer Institute to continue development of its leading anti-cancer compound. The Phase I grant was used to identify promising anti-cancer compounds from LifePharms' natural product collections, as part of a larger effort by the National Cancer Institute to develop compounds that show selectivity in affecting cancer cells. The compounds under development at LifePharms thus far appear to demonstrate both the potency and selectivity that researchers are seeking in compounds that target and destroy cancer cells without affecting surrounding normal, healthy cells.
Lifepharms, Inc. is a biotechnology company headquartered at the University of Connecticut’s Technology Incubation Program at Avery Point in Groton. LifePharms’ research focuses on discovering novel natural product compounds from basidiomycetes and ascomycetes (mushrooms). Its collection consists of more than 16,000 samples of these fungi that have been collected from sites over the entire North American continent.

As an additional component of SBIR II grant, LifePharms will be developing a unique library containing up to 100,000 purified compounds from its fungal extracts. This library will allow the company and its research collaborators to rapidly identify new lead compounds targeting cancer and other therapeutic areas. The majority of the species in its collection have never been cultured or catalogued and are unavailable in any fermentation collection. Estimates indicate that 40 percent of drugs have been discovered from natural sources, and an even greater percent of the novel structural classes of compounds are from natural products.

The isolation and chemical identification of active lead compounds will be carried out at the Natural Products Laboratory of RTI International, which has a long history of natural product drug discovery that includes the discoveries of camptothecin and Taxol. These compounds and their chemical derivatives are two of the most universally used anticancer agents on the market. RTI’s discoveries represent nearly one-third of the anti-cancer therapeutic market. Dr. Nicholas Oberlies leads the project at the institution.

According to E. Edward Mena, Ph.D., President and Chief Scientific Officer of Life Pharms, "This grant is a welcomed validation of our approach to drug discovery through our novel natural product library. Not only are we investigating several anti-cancer compounds with unique and interesting properties, but our lead compound has a novel structure that is distinct from other cancer therapeutics in use or in devlopment. . We welcome the support from the NIH to bolster our research efforts." Mena, is the principle investigator of the project.

In the past year the company has announced two other research collaborations. LifePharms is the lead institution along with Memorial Sloan-Kettering Institute and RTI on a project funded by a five-year research grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. The grant funds research to discover small-molecule therapeutics for smallpox infections. LifePharms also has entered into a Collaborative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) with the Natural Products Utilization Research Unit of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agriculture Research Service for the joint development of agricultural fungicides and herbicides.

The SBIR program is a highly competitive peer-reviewed grant program that provides support to small businesses with innovative technologies that possess significant commercial potential.

For more information, contact Dr. Mena at lifepharms@aol.com  or at (860) 405-9219.