CardioGene Therapeutics
August 1999
Heart disease is the leading cause of death in the United States. The battle against it is being fought with increasing intensity on several fronts, but few if any are more promising than those staked out by CardioGene Therapeutics, Inc., which was acquired by Boston Scientific Corporation (BSC), in mid-1998.
Founded in part by two University of Michigan professors, and based to a large extent on technology licensed from the UM, CardioGene is focused on the development of novel gene therapy products for the treatment of cardiovascular disease, including restenosis (the reclosing of coronary arteries following angioplasty), atherosclerosis, arrhythmias and heart failure. Its "technology platform" includes proprietary delivery systems, methods, devices and vectors for local delivery of therapeutic genes, including genes that include angiogenesis (new blood vessel formation).
Cardiogene's UM co-founders are Dr. Gary J. Nabel (on leave from the University; Director of the NIH's Vaccine Research Center) and Dr. Elizabeth G. Nabel (presently with the NIH), who have collaborated since 1994 with Dr. Jeffrey M. Leiden (Harvard University), CardioGene's third scientific co-founder. They all serve as consultants to CardioGene and on its scientific advisory board. The association with Cardiogene allows the Nabels to continue their research; meanwhile, products based on the work they have already completed can be further developed and begin to benefit patients.
While the company is not expected to have an independent identity now that it has been acquired by BSC, BSC will provide its products with a regulatory and market entree. Before its acquisition, the company was run by Martin Cleary, a 10-year veteran of building and managing biotechnology organizations, who became CardioGene's first employee in 1996. The Nabels were connected with Cleary by the UM Office of Technology Transfer, which had worked with him previously when another gene therapy firm evolved from UM technology.
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