BioCentury
ARTICLE | Targets & Mechanisms

Competing for growth

Therachon and BioClin hope FGFR3 blockers can outlast BioMarin’s vosoritide

April 6, 2017 10:23 PM UTC

With little in the clinical pipeline for achondroplasia beyond BioMarin Pharmaceutical Inc.’s late-stage vosoritide, startups Therachon AG and BioClin Therapeutics Inc. are rethinking how to tackle the disease. By targeting FGFR3 directly, the two companies think they can block a signal vosoritide misses, and produce compounds that have better efficacy and require less frequent dosing.

The field appears poised for an uptick of activity, triggered by BioMarin’s positive Phase II data and recent publications that validate the FGFR3 biology underlying the disorder. ...