Washington Editor

Tapestry Pharmaceuticals Inc. and Supratek Pharma Inc. entered a collaboration relating to next-generation formulations combining Tapestry's novel compounds and Supratek's Biotransport formulation technology.

Leonard Shaykin, chairman and CEO of Boulder, Colo.-based Tapestry, told BioWorld Today the deal involves a modest up-front payment to Supratek plus royalties and milestones should a product reach market.

He described the transaction as a "very simple collaborative licensing agreement in which we are taking their formulations and seeing if we can develop a novel formulation for our unique compounds."

Montreal-based Supratek's Biotransport carriers and related technologies are designed to alter the biopharmaceutical properties of a variety of molecules, including increasing bioavailability of drugs without changing their molecular structure. The firm specializes in polymer-based therapeutics and has a product pipeline focused on cancer.

Meanwhile, Tapestry, formerly NaPro BioTherapeutics (the company changed its name in May), develops therapies for the treatment of cancer and hereditary diseases.

In its oncology pipeline, the company is developing new chemical entities including NBT-287, a compound that appears to overcome two distinct mechanisms that cancer cells use as they develop taxane resistance, the company said.

Its second compound, NBT-273, belongs to the quassinoid family. According to the company, NBT-273 has shown cytotoxic activity in breast, pancreatic, multiple myeloma, colorectal and squamous-cell carcinomas.

Tapestry also has a targeted platform in which it attaches tumor peptides to approved oncology drugs. The firm currently has two such molecules: HN-1, a head and neck peptide that has been linked with a taxane, and bombesin, which also has been linked to a taxane, Shaykin said.