QRxPharma In Hunt For Drugs In Reptiles' Venom

Gary Pace, an Aussie by birth, sounds a bit like the Crocodile Hunter, and his company's Waltham conference room feels a bit like the Outback, when he explains that his native land is home to 17 of the 20 most dangerous snakes in the world. ''The inland taipan is the most deadly," Pace says cheerfully. One nip from a taipan injects enough venom to kill 100 people. Most of the drug industry's interest in deadly snakes has, not surprisingly, been concentrated on developing antivenin to aid the snake-bitten. But Pace's company, QRxPharma, is part of a small cluster of companies trying to bring to market drugs based on snake venom that will treat other conditions. One of QRxPharma's drug candidates, based on the venom of the Australian brown snake (second on the ''most dangerous" list), might help stanch the bleeding from a gunshot wound by promoting rapid clotting. Millennium Pharmaceuticals, based in Cambridge, already sells a drug called Integrilin, derived from the venom of the rattlesnake, to treat angina and small heart attacks by inhibiting clotting. The company earned nearly $50 million from Integrilin in the most recent quarter.