Aiming to be photogenic

Clinuvel Pharmaceuticals Ltd. spent the first half of this decade looking for a therapeutic application for its afamelanotide, which it knew worked as a photoprotectant and which the media had tagged as a potential tanning agent. In late 2005, the company finally came up with a focus on diseases provoked by ultraviolet light.

Now, Clinuvel has positive interim Phase III data in erythropoietic protoporphyria that it believes will get afamelanotide approved for the Orphan indication in 2010...