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Trana Discovery, Inc. |
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February 16, 2015 Issue |
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The Most Powerful Name In Corporate News and Information |
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Proprietary Drug Discovery Technology Platform for New Treatments |
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CEO
Trana Discovery, Inc.
Interview conducted by: Lynn Fosse, Senior Editor, CEOCFO Magazine, Published – February 16, 2015
CEOCFO: Mr. Peterson, what is the idea behind Trana Discovery? Mr. Peterson: The concept is to stop the production of key proteins inside pathogens (bacteria, fungi or viruses) that cause infections in humans, plants or animals. Our technology does this by identifying a chemical that blocks in a novel mechanism the transfer RNA (tRNA) from bringing in a critical and essential amino acid to the factory inside all living cells called the ribosome that produces new proteins. We looked to find a unique tRNA that was only used by the pathogen in question, for instance as we did with Staphylococcus aureus. We looked through the entire list of tRNA that Staphylococcus aureus use to build new proteins and found one that was unique as well as a protein that was essential for those bacteria to survive. So, the basic concept is to find a small chemical that will block an ultra-conserved region of that tRNA from building an essential protein.
CEOCFO: Is that still the concept today? Mr. Peterson: It is still the concept today and we have expanded it in several directions but we are trying to stay focused right now on just looking at a few pathogens that are of particular interest to the medical as well as the agricultural community. In human medicine, we have identified new HIV antivirals that stop HIV infected cells from producing new viruses. We have also completed a discovery program looking for small molecules that inhibit Staphylococcus aureus and we have finished that and have found molecules that actually kill MRSA (Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus), as well as Vancomycin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. The third area we plan to demonstrate the breadth of this technology is antifungal therapy. There is a new strain of an old fungus, Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. cubense (Foc) poised to destroy the world’s banana plants. Currently available antifungals are not effective on this new strain (TR4). This fungus started in Southeast Asia and it has now encompassed the globe infecting banana plants in almost every major continent that grows bananas. Bananas are incredibly important to the developing world; over four hundred million people count on the banana or plantain for one third of their daily calories. That is quite an impact if suddenly the banana and the plantain were removed from their diets. We felt it was worthwhile to target a pathogen that is truly affecting millions of people in the world of agriculture.
CEOCFO: Is the agricultural side something you have been involved with in the past or did you see the value of extending your platform to that arena? Mr. Peterson: The management team appreciated that an infection is an infection and it does not matter if it is a plant, an animal, or a human. The bacteria, fungus, protozoan or virus will affect each of those. From the very beginning, we knew that our anti-infective discovery platform had applications throughout all the living species; therefore, it was a natural progression. Additionally, it was actually an appeal by the agricultural community to turn our attention to the world of agriculture and not spend all of our time looking at human disease. Humans have to eat and if we did not pay attention to those infections that cause disease in soybeans, wheat and even citrus crops these would severely impact humans by depleting food resources. The same thing goes for aqua agriculture because fish farms have problems that they can attest to as well so it is broad ranging.
CEOCFO: Where is Trana today? Mr. Peterson: Our business model is to create specific anti-infective discovery platform in six months so that large companies can use this platform to screen millions of small chemical substances and realize their own discovery using our platform through a license to them. Our HIV and S. aureus platforms are finished and ready for licensing. The same business model holds true for our Fusarium mold discovery platform. We are in a fundraising mode for this platform and we are doing this through AgFunder. AgFunder is an investment marketplace connecting accredited and institutional investors with global companies, both large and small, throughout the agriculture value chain. They listen in on webinars that are given as a group to find out if that technology is one they want to invest in. That is how we are moving forward with our agricultural entre.
CEOCFO: Overall, do you find the technology resonates with both the investment and the medical or agricultural community; are they skeptical? Mr. Peterson: They are skeptical only because this is the first time that anybody has been able to offer this. Previously, antibiotics and antifungals primarily came from nature. Antibiotics were found in soil where fungi living side-by-side with bacteria kept bacteria in check by a fungus exuding certain toxins that we harvest as antibiotics and those kill bacteria in nature. Approximately, 90% of all antibiotics in the market today come from natural sources but ours would not be. Antibiotics discovered using a Trana platform would be very difficult for the bacteria to learn how to develop resistance, as this mechanism of action is new to the bacteria. This is a benefit for a company to offer this, as pathogens have no ancient gene to produce something to inactivate the antibiotic. The other thing that no one has been able to offer is selectivity; we can go after a specific pathogen and not disturb surrounding normal flora. That is one of the problems when people take Ampicillin or Amoxicillin and they get diarrhea or gastrointestinal upset that is because it is not a specific antibiotic but it is going after a broad spectrum of bacteria. It hits three or four bugs really well, it hits about ten in a mediocre fashion and it hits about thirty or forty just enough to irritate the bacteria. Therefore, the irritated bacteria begin to learn how to be resistant, it overgrows and you have a complete non-natural microbiome in your gastrointestinal system and it presents as a symptom through stomach cramps, bloating and diarrhea. The same thing happens in soil in the agricultural setting. Today, usually a fungicide is effective against at least twenty to fifty different fungi. Most are not the ones you are trying to kill and if some were beneficial fungi that exist in the soil to provide micronutrients and elements to the root system you destroyed the link and weakened the soil. Ours is a green technology because it goes after the pathogen that is causing the infection and leaves all the other bacteria and fungi alone. That is difficult to grasp because it is such a paradigm shift.
CEOCFO: What are the next steps at Trana Discovery? Mr. Peterson: We are actually getting ready to take our HIV compounds that we have found to be bioactive into analog development. We are doing some funding and research for that. We applied to a couple foundations to move these analogs forward into full development and go all the way to a new drug application (NDA) in the field of HIV. We are looking for a partner for our Gram negative (Gm -) discovery platform where we have already identified a shared tRNA that is shared by all these Gm - super bugs that are now highlighted by the CDC and WHO. You see the news articles about being in the post antibiotic era, well we might be if we just stopped where we are but that is one thing that Trana Discovery has to offer; a mechanism to combat those multidrug resistant bacteria. From there we will go to other areas where people have a definitive need; interest is great with novel agents for a sweet potato rust, Asian soybean rust or coffee rust. The coffee rust has been in the news lately. This rust has infected most of Latin America and South America is a fungus that is resistant to the routine fungicides. We can set our sights to that specific fungus and decipher through bioinformatics the tRNAs that are used and build a new discovery platform for that specific pathogen. It is going to be up to our customers to decide where we go next.
CEOCFO: How do you deal with some of the frustrations when you are working in drug development? It takes so long to get attention and authorization. How do you pace that with the value of what you are doing? Mr. Peterson: You summed it up with the aspect of value because that is what indeed we are bringing through this technology to the world. We are bringing the value of being able to selectively inhibit certain pathogens that are out there and they are the ones that are the troublesome ones and we read everyday a new report of multi-drug resistant diseases. This is what keeps us going. We are fortunate to have a wonderful group in our management team who are mostly industry veterans and they are very used to the highs and the lows of success and failure. You have to say you spent five years on something but then just have to throw it away because it has a bad toxicity profile or whatever reason. Drug development has always been a very risky business. What we are trying to do is avail everyone a less risky opportunity to go after specific pathogens that are indeed quite a threat to the world. While we may be tilting at windmills, we believe that curing infections is a cause worthwhile. One of the reasons that the management team got into this business was to help people. The management team has over three hundred years of combined industry experience. We are not newcomers to the quest and we all understand that it is going to take some time but the reward is worth it. |
“Our business model is to create specific anti-infective discovery platform in six months so that large companies can use this platform to screen millions of small chemical substances and realize their own discovery using our platform through a license to them.” - Steve Peterson
Trana Discovery, Inc.
Steve Peterson 919-656-0506 stevepeterson@tranadiscovery.com
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Steve
Peterson