A 30 million ruble grant from the Skolkovo Foundation is helping a team of Russian scientists develop potentially one of the most effective drugs yet to fight cardiovascular disease – the primary cause of death in Russia and the wider world.
Pharmadiall is a Skolkovo-resident company that has manufactured and patented a new chemical substance that could become a top anticoagulant drug, says general director Dmitry Tovbin.
Anticoagulants stop the blood clotting, reducing the risk of strokes and heart attacks, and their effectiveness is in part measured by how little is required to double the time it takes a blood clot to form.
Tovbin claims Pharmadiall’s DD217 compound beats all-comers.
"Over two years we created a molecule that is now a candidate to become a medicine and patented it. In 2010 we got the formula and noticed that our substance, according to published data and research done by independent laboratories, … is the most active in the world by the most important indicator: the concentration that doubles the time for the formation of fibrin blood clots," Tovbin said.
Phamadiall has already synthesized the next-generation blood-thinner, and the grant from Skolkovo, which converts to about $843,000, will provide for preclinical testing, Tovbin says.
Having patented DD217, Tovbin says the company’s involvement would likely end at its sale to a bigger pharmaceutical, which would then produce a marketable drug from the substance.
Serious side-effects from the most common anticoagulants on the market today, including herapin and warfarin, are associated with protracted bleeding, or hemorrhaging, due to the blood’s inability to clot.
Pharmadiall comprises five scientists – two with experience at U.S. firms. It became a resident company of Skolkovo’s Biomed cluster in 2012.
The anticoagulant market in the West is worth up to $15 billion a year, Tovbin said, with the Russian market valued at $500 million.