Pro Bono Bio makes its debut
Anglo-Russian pharmaceutical firm will launch nanotechnology based medicines
Pro Bono Bio, a new international pharmaceutical company, is to be launched today (12 September).
The company is the result of a three-year Anglo/Russian project developed by London-based private equity group Celtic Pharma Holdings. It will combine global pharma expertise from the UK with international capital and matched funding from the Russian Corporation of Nanotechnologies (RusNano).
RusNano has reportedly already invested £300m in Celtic Pharma’s life science funds and will have a stake of more than 40% in Pro Bono Bio.
Pro Bono Bio will this week start selling Flexiseq, the first in a pipeline of products, a nanotechnology based treatment for osteoarthritis, in the UK.
The company also plans to launch Exoseq and Rossoseq for the treatment of inflammatory skin disorders. Like Flexiseq, these products are based on Sequessome technology, which is able physically to absorb (sequester) and remove chemicals that are a key component in the pain and inflammation cascade.
Pro Bono Bio executives developed the Sequessome technology with external collaborators. The firm owns several global patents to the technology.
Pro Bono Bio’s other pipeline products include blood factors for the treatment of haemophilia, as well as antibiotics for the treatment of C.difficile, MRSA and tuberculosis infections.
The launch of Pro Bono Bio coincided with the visit to Russia of UK Prime Minister David Cameron, who said the venture was a ‘great example of UK-Russia collaboration at the cutting edge of r&d’.
Pro Bono Bio has pledged to price products in different geographic areas based on the region’s ability to pay. The firm will make free drug donations to Africa based on the sales of its products at normal prices in the pharmaceutical markets of Western Europe.
John Mayo, the founder of Celtic Pharma and chief executive of Pro Bono Bio, said: ‘With an exciting pipeline of products and an innovative business model we intend to ensure that Pro Bono Bio can deliver attractive shareholder returns while at the same time making a growing contribution to healthcare budgets in areas such as the East African community where resources are extremely limited.’
Pro Bono Bio will initially focus the marketing of Flexiseq and the other Sequessome technology based products in Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).
The products will initially be sourced from European and Russian manufacturers’ approved facilities, but in the mid-term Pro Bono Bio said it planned to build, with RusNano’s backing, its own pharmaceutical plant close to Moscow and a sister plant in the UK to comply with European regulations, which together will supply global markets.