Old newspaper article on Gonex

[spadone (imported)]

[looks promising -- but I wonder when it will be finally marketed?- spadone]

[reprint of an older article]

Gonex testing single-shot

sterilization for animials

By Vicky Uhland

BOULDER -- H. Lee Sturgeon is president of three different start-up biotech companies that, if they succeed, will discover a cure for lung cancer, bone cancer and osteoporosis, and will develop a single injection that can sterilize any mammal, including humans.

Sounds like the dream of some crackpot or maybe the work of the evil scientist in a James Bond movie, doesn't it?

But one look at Sturgeon's credentials shows he isn't loony or bent on world domination. The 68-year-old accountant holds bachelor's and master's degrees from the University of Kansas. Until age 33, he was an accountant with the Kansas City office of Arthur Anderson & Co., doing tax work for banks. Then, like all successful entrepreneurs, he shifted his focus.

"I started looking around at all those banks and I thought, why not me?" he says.

So Sturgeon put together a group of investors and bought a bank in Rocky Ford. In 1972, he founded the Bank of Boulder. In the early 80s, he taught at the business school at the University of Colorado at Boulder, and in 1983, in a seemingly unrelated career move, he co-founded Cortech Inc., a Denver-based pharmaceutical research and development company that went public in 1992.

By this time, Sturgeon was at an age where the next logical step was to sit back in his Boulder Country Club home, manage his investments, maybe play a little golf. Instead, he went into biotech big time.

Sturgeon says his jump from banking to biotech isn't that unusual when you look at it from an entrepreneurial standpoint.

"That kind of an attitude can cut across any sort of industry," he says.

In 1996, he joined Colorado State University Professor Terry Nett and University of Colorado Health Science Center Professor of Oncology Michael Glode in forming Gonex Inc. A year later, he signed on as president of Carcinex Inc. and MBC Research Inc. (See related story, Page 26.)

Gonex is the most advanced of the three companies. Nett and Glode, through the CSU Research Foundation, hold five patents on a compound that would sterilize any mammal with a single injection. Gonex is the exclusive worldwide licensee of Nett and Glode's CSU patents.

Net and Glode's compound, GnRH-PAP, is designed to destroy the gonadotropin hormones secreted by the anterior pituitary gland. For male or female mammals to reproduce, the gonads must be stimulated by these hormones, so if the hormones are destroyed, the mammal will be permanently sterile. The gonadotropin hormones (GnRH) are identical in all mammalian species, so a single formula can be used to sterilize anything from a cat to an elephant to a human.

Sturgeon, Nett and Glode foresee Gonex's primary market as dog and cat sterilization. A possible secondary market is treatment of prostate and breast cancer in humans.

According to Sturgeon, there is no single-injection sterilization product currently on the market. There is a drug called Leupron, which temporarily sterilizes mammals, and is used on humans to treat prostate and breast cancer. In the final stages of these cancers, castration can generally buy a patient a couple more years of life.

But Sturgeon says Leupron costs about $2,000 per shot and must be readministered.

In contrast, Sturgeon projects that an injection of Gonex's compound would cost a consumer about $50. He breaks down the cost per unit at $5. Gonex's sales price, or wholesale price, would be $15; a distributor's sales price would be $25 and an average vet fee to a customer would be $50.

That's substantially cheaper and less painful than surgical sterilization. According to figures from the American Humane Society, the national average cost for cat castration is about $65; for dogs, around $140.

The Humane Society reports about 62 million cats and 53 million dogs nationwide. Seventy-seven percent of those cats and 50 percent of the dogs are surgically sterilized. Sturgeon projects that based on a 10-year life cycle, there will be about 10 million dogs and cats available for neutering each year. That's about a $90 million-a-year market, he says.

Not only will Gonex's compound help regulate pet overpopulation, Sturgeon says it can humanely thin the populations of larger mammals. Gonex's product could be used in Africa, where elephants are running rampant as the result of anti-poaching laws, or in Estes Park, where there is an elk surplus, he says.

Gonex's GnRH-PAP has been tested on sheep and rats. Sturgeon says when male and female rats injected with the compound are placed in the same cage, they don't reproduce.

"That's a pretty substantial breakthrough," he points out.

The next step is animal testing and federal Food and Drug Administration approval. Sturgeon says because GnRH-PAP is an animal product, the approval process should be shorter and cheaper. He estimates it will take three years and cost about $5 million, less than 10 percent of what it costs for approval of a human drug. Gonex will delay human testing and approval until the animal veterinary process is finished.

Although Gonex is what Sturgeon calls a "virtual company," the office is in Sturgeon's house and he, Nett and Glode receive no salaries, money is still needed for research and to pay a research chemist.

Gonex has a $100,000 National Institute of Health grant (see related story), which expires July 31. Sturgeon will then apply for a Phase II grant -- $750,000 over two years. That's expected to take Gonex through the animal testing process. In addition, Sturgeon is selling stock in the company at 25 cents a share. So far, he has raised $60,000 and hopes to add another $100,000 by early July as part of a private placement.

It's a full-time job and then some to raise money for a start-up biotech company. Gonex has some pluses, however, says Nan Matthews, program manager of Lakewood's Colorado Venture Centers Inc.

First of all, pet sterilization by injection is a viable market, Matthews says. Secondly, Gonex is headed by two internationally renowned scientists who are considered experts in their field. "They're not starting with youngsters," Matthews says.

Finally, Matthews says Sturgeon's extensive business background and experience with start-ups is a huge asset.

"A lot of young companies don't have a businessperson on their side. They're just scientists and engineers," she says.

Sturgeon says Gonex's currency is Nett and Glode and their credibility as scientists. That's often all a biotech company has to start, he says, and that's enough to get funding. Where companies run into trouble is when they measure their progress by payroll, he says.

"Cortech, Synergen, they crashed and burned," he says. "A lot of biotech companies thought they couldn't get up in the morning if they didn't have their own laboratories."

Companies like the now-defunct Synergen and Amgen Inc., a Thousand Oaks, Calif.-based company building a 1.5 million-square-foot facility in Longmont, are required by the FDA to have laboratory facilities, because they do genetic engineering, Sturgeon says.

Gonex is lucky. Because it does pure chemistry, it can outsource its manufacturing, he says. Down the line, Gonex is looking at contracting with a company like Hauser Inc. in Weld County rather than building its own manufacturing facility.

Gonex uses the CSU Animal and Reproduction and Biotechnology Laboratory, and Carcinex rents a small laboratory facility from the Eleanor Roosevelt Institute in the CU Health Sciences Center in Denver. In addition, Carcinex contracts with the CU Health Sciences Center for care, space and feeding of laboratory animals for testing.

When Gonex starts FDA trials, the company will contract with Fort Collins-based Schafer Veterinary Consultants so it doesn't have to hire people to guide it through the trials.

"We're trying to be a lean and mean company," Sturgeon says. "Where (some biotech companies) talk about growth in terms of people they've hired, we talk about growth in terms of science and product."

[jab (imported)]

I can see the advertisements now:

"I'm not only the company president, but a loyal customer. I was chemically castrated three years ago, and will be one of the first people to upgrade from a chemical castration to a surgical one with our new product, Knife 1.0!"

I can see the FCC censors clucking about that one....