ApopLogic: Finding cell death drivers

Although many cancer therapeutics ultimately work by instigating events that lead to apoptosis, ApopLogic Pharmaceuticals Inc. believes it can be successful by more directly focusing on the receptors and ligands involved in natural cell death. But rather than studying the apoptotic pathway to find new targets, the company's first two products work against targets that have traditionally been developed for autoimmune and inflammatory diseases.

ApopLogic was founded to develop and commercialize Fasaret, an adenoviral gene therapy encoding Fas ligand. The product was invented by Richard Duke and Donald Bellgrau at the University of Colorado and was originally licensed to GlobeImmune Inc. (Louisville, Colo.), which in turn licensed the product to Novartis AG (NVS; SWX:NOVN, Basel, Switzerland) to treat transplant rejection...