BioCentury
ARTICLE | Company News

Biotie autoimmune, pulmonary news

November 1, 2010 7:00 AM UTC

Biotie said it will restructure and reduce headcount by 59 (73%) to about 22 as part of its plans to discontinue its early-stage discovery efforts in order to focus on the clinical development of ronomilast and BTT-1023. As part of the restructuring, Biotie will spin-off its Radebeul, Germany, site into newco, biocrea GmbH, and move all operations to its Turku, Finland, headquarters. All employees from the German site along with all preclinical assets from Biotie's Biotie Therapies GmbH subsidiary will be transferred to the newco. Biotie CSO Thomas Kronbach will depart to become managing director of biocrea. Biotie will invest up to €4.8 million ($6.7 million) in biocrea over the next 12 months.

Ronomilast is an oral phosphodiesterase-4 (PDE-4) inhibitor that is in Phase I testing to treat chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder (COPD) and BTT-1023 is a mAb against vascular adhesion protein-1 ( VAP-1; SSAO) that has completed a Phase I trial for rheumatoid arthritis. ...