The Strategy of Antibody-Based Company KaloBios
January 2008
The Strategy of Antibody-Based Company KaloBios
Interview with Dave Pritchard
The Strategy of Antibody-Based Company KaloBios
In this exclusive interview, Fintan Walton talks to Dave Pritchard, CEO of KaloBios Pharmaceuticals, about this antibody-based company, its platform technology and its research programmes. Dave discusses KaloBios’ financing through funding rounds, and its 2007 licensing deal with Novartis. He talks about KaloBios’ plans to raise more money through further partnering, and how the company has also been recently approached by strategic investors, leading to the possibility of an unusual corporate round of funding. Dave also touches on similarities between KaloBios and his last antibody company, Rinat Neuroscience, which was acquired by Pfizer for US$500 M, and mentions the possibility of KaloBios being similarly acquired.
About Dave Pritchard
Dave Pritchard was appointed as President and CEO of KaloBios in October 2006. He joined KaloBios with more than 25 years of experience in general management, business development and financial management within the biopharmaceutical industry. Most recently he held the position of CBO at Rinat Neuroscience, where he managed the negotiations on the acquisition of Rinat by Pfizer in 2006, for a reported US$500 M. Before that that he was CFO at Matrix Pharmaceutical, and managed the sale of the company to Chiron (now Novartis) in 2002.
About KaloBios Pharmaceuticals
KaloBios is a privately held biopharmaceutical company that uses its proprietary technologies to develop human antibody therapeutics. It currently has two programmes entering Phase I/II studies; KB-001 is an anti-infective for Pseudomonas aeruginosa infections to be tested in patients with cystic fibrosis and ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP), and KB002 is an anti-inflammatory entering studies for rheumatoid arthritis and asthma. The company’s technology, termed ‘Humaneering™’, offers advantages over other methods of antibody development in terms of speed, cost, versatility and nearness to human germline sequence. KaloBios focuses on developing antibodies from the Humaneering™ stage to the early clinical stage, at which time it plans to partner them.
