The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Cyclacel has a pipeline of four cancer drugs
Dundee University spin-out founded by Professor Sir David Lane still going strong after more than 20 years
A biopharmaceutical company spun out of Dundee University has now notched up more than two decades in business.
Cyclacel Pharmaceuticals was founded in 1996 by worldrenowned cancer scientist Professor Sir David Lane, who discovered p53 – a key tumour suppressor gene that malfunctions in about two-thirds of human cancers.
Although Cyclacel has its headquarters in the US, most of its workforce are in Dundee where it has its primary research facility.
Executive vice-president Paul McBarron told Business Matters the company is currently developing a pipeline of four drugs targeting blood and solid cancers.
However, as all businesses in Cyclacel’s line of work know only too well, there is never any guarantee of success.
In February, Cyclacel reported results from the Phase 3 Seamless study in elderly patients with acute myeloid leukaemia .
The trial did not meet its primary end point of demonstrating statistically-significant improvement in overall survival.
Spiro Rombotis, president and chief executive, said then: “We are disappointed not to have reached the primary end point of Seamless.”
Cyclacel became a public company in 2006 in the US.
Mr McBarron said the reason for listing in the US was that there was much more money available for firms like Cyclacel across the Atlantic than on the London stock exchange.
But the financial crisis of 2007-8 still took a major toll on Cyclacel and its workforce.
“We had about 85 people before the crash,” Mr McBarron said.
“But, like other biotech companies, we had to slim down and just retain key scientists.
“We now have 13 staff – about 10 of them in Dundee and the rest in the US.”
However, Mr McBarron said outsourcing of operations such as manufacturing meant Cyclacel was still providing work for a total of several dozen people.