Drug R&D hurdles hamper another biotech as a Jeff Aronin upstart shuts down

2022-11-03

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It’d be hard to quantify how many biotechs have quietly flown under the radar as “stealth” upstarts and then never emerged publicly because of data, financials or other reasons — unless every whisper from the grapevine makes it to your ears.

But many biotechs do announce themselves eventually, which means if the drug R&D hunt comes to an end — as happens so often in the grueling biopharma industry — then it’s more prone to become publicly known.

In a difficult year for biotechs, that has meant some have shuttered. The list now includes a startup out of Jeff Aronin’s incubator Paragon Biosciences, Endpoints News has learned.

Attempting to treat oral pre-cancerous lesions, Paragon had unveiled Skyline Biosciences in August 2018, but that mission has now come to a conclusion, the biotech creator confirmed to Endpoints. In an emailed statement, Paragon characterized Skyline as a “pre-proof of concept stage company.”

“Earlier this year, it did not meet the milestones necessary to warrant additional development resources,” the statement concluded.

At least $3.9 million had gone into the startup as of a 2018 SEC filing, but the company couldn’t bring its oral adhesive film SBS-101 into a Phase I study because of “[d]elays due to manufacturing and the COVID-19 pandemic,” according to an update to the federal clinical trials database. The goal was to test three doses — 0.1%, 0.2% and 0.3% — versus placebo in patients with oral premalignant lesions. Clinical data would have been in hand by next year under the original plan.

Skyline was part of a portfolio of companies launched out of Chicago-based Paragon, which has also backed daytime sleepiness drugmaker Harmony Biosciences, Takeda-partnered Evozyne and eye-focused cell therapy maker CiRC Biosciences.

Another Paragon-founded company, Emalex Biosciences, announced a $250 million Series D Thursday morning to bankroll a Phase III study for a potential Tourette syndrome drug.

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