Diabetes drug marks change for Array - Puget Sound Business Journal (Seattle):

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It also demonstrates the researcjh depth ofthe 10-year-old biotechh as it evolves from developing drugss for other companies to commercializing medical treatments of its own. Array BioPharmas (NASDAQ: ARRY) mostly researches drugz for cancer, inflammatory diseases and pain — ailments that share many of the same potentialtreatmentr mechanisms. Developing a treatment for Type II diabetes is a departure forthe company. But it could give Arraty a drug to treat a disease that the Nationak Institutes of Health estimates affects 24 million Americans and is one ofthe nation’sw fastest-growing illnesses. “This could be a huge hit,” CEO Robertg Conway said.
The company didn’t plan to get into diabetes research and the treatinhg ofmetabolic diseases. Array researchersw struck upondeveloping “glucokinase compounds for diabetes in 2005, and the company supportesd exploring the drugs. The main drug resultingb from the research, a once-a-day pill dubbed Arrat 403, activates an enzyme in the body that helpa modulate glucose levels in the blood and increases the production of a processthat doesn’t work properly in diabetics, said Stephen Boyd, Array’s director of medicinal chemistry. Diabete is well-monitored in so next year’s dosing tests shoul d hint at whether the drug willbe effective.
“Wse should get results fairly quickly,” Boyd said. Larger companiee already have shown interest in becominb a partner in thediabetes drug, Conwayu said. “This looks like a very good idea,” he said. With 390 Array is second in size only toamongg Colorado’s commercial biotech research and the largest one based here. Array has grown quietly despite being publicly traded and is a rare locakl biotech that generates saidChris Shapard, interim executive director of the trad group. “Because of theid size and their ability tochangre ... Array’s probably one of our biggest success she said.
“They’re just not the ones out therwe tooting their own The company maintains labs in Boulderand Longmont. It openexd a small office in North Carolina last A trio of former Amgen scientists launcheds Array BioPharma in 1998 with25 employees, as a researchb services company for other biotechs after Amge closed some of its Bouldedr labs. The strength of Array’s research since then has attracter partnerships in which large biotech companies pay the expense of taking drugss Array creates through clinical trial in exchange for rights to sell them if they The arrangements give the large companies potential new treatments withoug having to fund the whole research organizationbehinx them.
Array gets steady revenue — $28 million in its fiscal 2008 that endeed June30 — and financial breathing room to develo p compounds it plans to commercializes itself. Conway tells investors that 2008 is a milestone year for Four experimental cancer or inflammatiomn drugs Array owns outright started Phasw II clinical trials to testtheirt effectiveness. Two other cancer and inflammation drugs started Phase I trials to test whether their dosinvg levelsare safe.