For Euclises, it’s simple.
Without the work of John Talley, Ph.D., the world would not have Celebrex®, the blockbuster arthritis treatment that has generated in excess of $3.5 billion in sales for Pfizer.
Or Dynastat®, an injectable COX-2 inhibitor that’s sold in Europe and Asia for the treatment of acute postoperative pain.
Or Deramaxx®, the first COX-2 class drug approved for the control of pain and inflammation.
Or any of the eight drugs that he invented or co-invented over the course of his 30-year career and that collectively account for more than $40 billion in sales.
In fact, Dr. Talley is one of the world’s most successful medical chemists, a named inventor on more than 215 issued U.S. drug patents, the author of more than 50 peer reviewed publications and a recipient of the prestigious PhRMA Discoverers Award.
And he is also the Chief Scientific Officer and co-founder of St. Louis-based Euclises Pharmaceuticals, part of the iSelect portfolio.
A new type of cancer treatment
Euclises is a drug discovery and development company that is advancing the next generation of oral, small-molecule drugs that target COX-2 to disrupt the tumor microenvironment and kill cancer cells. Founded in 2011, Euclises is working to promote the use of a newly discovered COX-2 inhibitor as a co-therapy for the treatment of certain cancers, including non-small cell lung cancer, colorectal cancer, and malignant melanoma.
This new molecule, designated ECP-1014, has been found to show anti-cancer activity by itself in animal models of colorectal cancer. More importantly, ECP-1014 has shown to possess synergistic anti-cancer activity in combination with immune checkpoint inhibitors, which are among the most promising new cancer treatments in the field today. Euclises is currently in the process of conducting investigational new drug testing, enabling studies to support the initiation of human clinical trials in the first quarter of 2017.
In short: The company is working on therapies that will treat cancer in partnership with the patient’s own immune system.
And their product is getting closer to market every day.
A distinguished career
Prior to co-founding Euclises, Dr. Talley served as Senior Vice President of Drug Discovery and Distinguished Scientist at Ironwood Pharmaceuticals, a public drug discovery company in Cambridge, MA. During his tenure at Ironwood, linaclotide was discovered and later commercialized as Linzess® for the treatment of gastrointestinal motility disorders.
He previously spent 15 years in various roles at G. D. Searle and Pharmacia/Pfizer, leading drug discovery efforts in a number of therapeutic areas. Dr. Talley has extensive experience in heterocyclic, peptide, and peptide mimic chemistries. Many of his inventions are directed towards stabilization of peptide drugs by novel non-amino acid isosteric replacement. He was among the first researchers to incorporate chiral substituted -amino acids, succinic acid derivatives, dehydro-amino acids, and -amino phosphonates into peptide drug candidates.
In 2002, Dr. Talley received the prestigious PhRMA Discoverers Award for the discovery of Celebrex®, and he was named to “The Medicine Maker” magazine’s 2015 and 2016 Power List at number 11 and number 17, respectively. The Power List recognizes the 100 most influential people in the field.
To learn more about Euclises and Dr. Talley’s groundbreaking cancer therapy work, visit www.euclises.com.
To learn more about the investment opportunities currently available with Euclises, please contact iSelect or visit www.iselectfund.com.
