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By Rebecca Spalding
NEW YORK, Oct 29 (Reuters) - As a private investor, former
U.S. Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Scott Gottlieb is
focused on an area where few have found success in recent years:
developing new antibiotics.
Since leaving the FDA in April, Gottlieb has revealed little
about what types of investments he would make in his new role at
New Enterprise Associates, one of the country's largest venture
capital firms where he worked prior to his time in government.
But in an interview, Gottlieb said he intends to use his
expertise to back therapeutic areas that other healthcare
investors have overlooked due to concerns over how the
treatments are paid for.
Near the top of his list are companies researching new kinds
of antibiotics, an issue he advocated for while at the FDA.
"I'm very interested in finding opportunities in the
anti-infective space, particularly around multi-drug resistant
organisms," Gottlieb said in an interview. "Anti-infectives have
been unloved for a very long time. There's a huge clinical
need."
In many ways, it's a contrarian bet. Global health officials
have repeatedly warned about the rise of bacteria and other
microbes that are resistant to most available drugs, raising the
specter of untreatable infectious diseases that could spread
rapidly.
But few large drugmakers are researching new medicines that
can combat these so-called "superbugs" because the economics
often work against them. Drugmakers earn more revenue the more
drugs they sell. However, antibiotics are more effective the
less they are used.
Last year, pharmaceutical giant Novartis AG said it
would abandon its antibiotic research, following similar moves
made by peers AstraZeneca Plc and Sanofi SA.
Pfizer Inc, whose board Gottlieb joined in June
after leaving government, is one of the few remaining large
players still in the space along with GlaxoSmithKline Plc
, which this week begun late-stage testing of an
experimental antibiotic in patients with urinary tract
infections and gonorrhea.
Smaller players, meanwhile, have struggled to find
financing. Achaogen Inc said earlier this year that it would
file for bankruptcy despite having brought a novel antibiotic
through FDA approval. Tetraphase Pharmaceuticals, Inc
plummeted earlier this month after it gave a disappointing sales
forecast for its antibiotic treatment.
Gottlieb said the sector's low valuations create an
opportunity to roll up therapies into a larger company focused
on making antibiotics.
"After the Achaogen episode, a lot of valuations have been
driven down quite dramatically. I think there's an opportunity
to try to find some existing assets and maybe build a company
around those assets," he said.
"That's what I think I'd be interested in doing," Gottlieb
said. "There are other investors that are interested in this as
well. I think the capital is out there to do that."
While at the FDA, Gottlieb advocated finding new ways to pay
for antibiotics, such as a licensing model that would charge
hospitals upfront for access to new kinds of anti-infective
drugs rather than paying for them on a per unit basis.
In the past, Gottlieb was criticized over potential
conflicts of interest between his government and private sector
work, including an investment in Kure Corp, a privately-held
vaping company. Gottlieb promised to divest that interest prior
to joining the FDA, where he assumed oversight of the burgeoning
e-cigarette market.
(Reporting by Rebecca Spalding; Editing by Michele Gershberg
and Tom Brown)
