Eugene-based Cascade ProDrug plans to develop more effective methods for fighting cancerous tumors

Augie Sick, former executive with Life Technologies, launched Cascade ProDrug with Allan Cochrane, an entrepreneur with ties to firms in the Seattle area, including Pacific Biometrics, a spin-out from the University of Washington School of Medicine.

Cascade ProDrug initially plans to develop safer and more effective treatments for cancerous tumors, using technology it recently acquired from the University of Oregon.

Cochrane and Sick declined to be interviewed for this story, so no information is yet available about how many people the firm might employ, or what kind of operation might be set up in Eugene.

“We are not really ready to say more about the company and its plans at this point,” Cochrane said in an e-mail. “The next six months are assembling the team and developing the operating plan to continue preclinical trials.”

An unusual sequence of events led to the formation of Cascade ProDrug, said Don Gerhart, UO associate vice president for research and innovation.

The technology that Cascade ProDrug recently acquired was developed by Novacea Inc., a publicly traded company in South San Francisco that in February merged with Transcept Pharmaceuticals, a publicly traded company in Point Richmond, Calif.

Novacea had developed the technology through years of collaboration with the laboratory of UO professor John Keana, a medicinal chemist who holds 70 U.S. patents and ranks among Oregon’s most prolific inventors, university officials said.

When Novacea decided in 2008 to shift its research and development to other projects, the UO acquired the technology, which included technical data, patent rights and experimental compounds that activate in low-oxygen tissues.

The UO then passed that technology along to Cascade ProDrug in a deal that provides the UO an equity stake in Cascade ProDrug, and royalties should patented products reach the marketplace, university officials said.

Cascade ProDrug also provided Transcept Pharmaceuticals with a consideration package as part of the agreement, university officials said.

Details of those agreements are not available, Gerhart said. “Business terms of deals are not public,” he said.

There are plenty of examples of university-affiliated research contributing to the development of new medicines, from research at the University of Toronto in the 1920s that led to the discovery of insulin, to more recent research at Emory University that led to the development of an antiviral drug used to treat HIV, Gerhart said.

The technology at the core of Cascade ProDrug “was really corporate created, corporate owned,” Gerhart said. “It was a real windfall … for all of us, for the community, as well as the region and the university — not to mention Cascade Pro­Drug itself.”

Gerhart calls Cascade Pro­Drug “a very intriguing opportunity.”

“It has significant potential,” he said, adding that “the risks of any early-stage development program are really huge.”

Gerhart said that four critical elements need to be met for any startup to succeed: one, a market opportunity and a way to reach that market; two, money; three, a management team; and four, technology.

“It’s almost like a chair,” he said. “If any of the legs is weak or missing, the chances of success are really reduced dramatically.”

Gerhart said “the management coming around this start-up is strong, and we’re very pleased about that.”