Austria, Vienna, December 9, 2005 -- Pelias AG announced today the start of its operations. Headquartered at the Campus Vienna Biocenter in Vienna, Pelias will focus on the development of novel products for the prevention and treatment of hospital-acquired infections, usually called nosocomial infections.
Foundation
The foundation of Pelias is based on a strong global partnership between Intercell and Parteurop, who joined forces to build up a new biotech company by combining their expertise, technologies and product candidates. The start up is seed financed primarily through Intercell and an atypical silent partnership of Kapital & Wert. The company will also seek to obtain public subsidies. With licensed technologies from Chiron and Intercell, Pelias’ mission is to develop novel vaccines and antibody-based therapies for the prevention and treatment of hospital-acquired infections. The company’s lead product is a novel vaccine licensed from Chiron against Pseudomonas infection, which has already been in clinical trials.
Nosocomial infections are one of the major causes of death and serious illness worldwide and result in annual burden of $20Bn in the developed world.
“An advanced product, enabling technologies, an excellent team as well as strong financial support offered a unique opportunity to address this area of high unmet medical need”, states Gerd Zettlmeissl, CEO Intercell AG. “Intercell will retain and emphasize its focus on its advanced products and development pipeline while Pelias’ core competence will be the development of products against nosocomial infections”.
Robust product pipeline and successful technologies
Pelias has started its business with three key projects targeting important pathogens in hospital infections: Pseudomonas, Enterococcus and Klebsiella.
The Pseudomonas product candidate is licensed from Chiron and has already achieved a clinical proof of concept in a Phase IIa clinical trial. For the Enterococcus and Klebsiella projects, Pelias is using Intercell’s proven and highly successful Antigen Identification Program to identify novel protective antigens. “These two projects using the valuable Intercell AIP technology and our advanced product candidate already in clinical development provide our company with an unique and promising pipeline right from the beginning”, states Mathias Grote, CEO of Pelias.
Medical need
Pseudomonas, Enterococcus and Klebsiella are bacterial infections acquired by people being in hospital care. The majority of them cause a variety of disorders, notably pneumonia, urinary tract infections and sepsis. The incidence of nosocomial infections is steadily increasing due to a variety of reasons, most notably the ongoing emergence of antibiotic resistant bacteria circulating in hospitals. Due to the growing problem there is clearly a very large unmet need to develop effective prophylactic, post exposure and therapeutic vaccines to effectively combat nosocomial infections. Despite this obvious urgent need, there are only a very few products of this type currently in development within the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries.
Network of excellence Founded out of a strong global partnership, Pelias combines the know-how and expertise of leading experts in the field of infectious diseases.
Mathias Grote, former Senior Vice President of Commercial Operations at Intercell will lead the company as CEO. Before joining Intercell, Mathias Grote gained a broad experience in senior management functions in development, manufacturing and business development e.g. at Chiron Vaccines. Jacques-Francois Martin, the former CEO of Pasteur Merieux and President of “The Vaccine Fund”, who was involved in the pharmaceutical, biological and life science industries with a strong focus on vaccines for more than 30 years, will chair Pelias’ Supervisory Board. ”I have always been fascinated by biotech companies that strike new paths to develop innovative treatments to overcome huge burdens in our healthcare system. Pelias, founded by leading vaccine players, combines the excellent know-how and expertise of a global network in his team”, he states.
Together with leading clinicians, scientists and an international cooperation network, Pelias and its dedicated team is ready to focus on one of the most important challenges of the 21st century.
“As experienced investor in life sciences we were convinced of Pelias’ business concept and decided to support the company from the very beginning”, states Michael Stranz, Executive Board at Kapital &Wert.
Key shareholders
Key shareholders include Intercell, Go Equity, Chiron, Parteurop, Bioalliance and the Management.
Contact:
Dr. Mathias Grote Pelias Biomedizinische Entwicklungs AG Dannebergplatz 16/2 1030 Vienna, Austria Phone +43 1 718 03 26 100 office@pelias.com www.pelias.com
About nosocomial infections Nosocomial infections are bacterial or fungal infections which are acquired in a hospital setting and cause a variety of severe infections, many life-threatening such as pneumonia, sepsis and bacteremia. 2 million infections occur every year and 100,000 annual deaths in the US alone are due to nosocomial infections. The annual burden to the society is constantly increasing due to the antibiotics resistance of the most problematic bacteria.
About Intercell
Intercell AG is a fast growing biotechnology company focusing on the design and development of novel vaccines for prevention and treatment of diseases with substantial unaddressed medical need. The Company’s unique position is based on the combination of antigens and immunizers (adjuvants) derived from its proprietary technology platforms and its in-house GMP manufacturing facilities. Intercell’s technology has been endorsed by collaborative agreements with a number of global pharmaceutical companies, including Sanofi Pasteur, Merck&Co. Inc., SciGen Ltd. and the Statens Serum Institut. The Company has a broad development pipeline with a vaccine for Japanese Encephalitis in Phase III, a vaccine for Hepatitis C in Phase II, a partnered Tuberculosis vaccine in Phase I and five products focused on infectious diseases in pre-clinical development. Intercell is listed on the Vienna stock exchange under the symbol “ICLL”. For more information please visit: www.intercell.com
About Kapital & Wert
Kapital & Wert has been established since 1981, has 49 employees and 36.500 customers. Up until now, there have been 56 investments made, e.g. Zellstoff Pöls AG, Steyrermühl AG, Cosmos, Ankerbrot, Intercell, Familia-Märkte, Dogro Warenhandel, Vogel & Noot Landmaschinenfabrik AG, FSG Biosupport Forschungs GmbH, BV Biotechnologies GmbH, IMS Nanofabrication GmbH. Another 31 precaution real estate funds and 10 closed real estate funds projects were planned and executed.
