Dovetail Technologies Inc.

Dovetail's goal is to find a non-toxic, small, stable molecule against cancer, starting with myeloma.

• Business: Non-toxic cancer therapeutics

• Contact: Floyd Taub, MD, Founder & President

• Address: 337 Paint Branch Drive, #112

• College Park, MD 20742

• Phone: [phone]

• Fax: [phone]

• Founded: August 1994

Flush with funds from his previous start-up, Digene Diagnostics Corp. (now publicly-traded Digene Corp. , the leader in clinical DNA diagnostics for cervical cancer), Floyd Taub, MD began casting about for a new venture. Taub saw a great need in the field of cancer. Says Taub, "This is the most inadequately treated disease. Your choice is to slash, burn or poison; therapies will be toxic and frequently not successful." His goal: to find a non-toxic, small, stable molecule against cancer. At a minimum, such a drug could be given in conjunction with standard chemotherapy or radiation therapy. But the ideal candidate would also be effective as a stand-alone therapy. Unlike the toxic or surgical alternatives that exist today, a non-toxic drug could potentially be given to patients with pre-malignant conditions, or to patients at risk of recurrence.

Taub believes he has found such a molecule in Betathine, licensed from the University of New Mexico , and founded Dovetail Technologies Inc. to pursue preclinical development of it as well as other small molecule cancer compounds. Betathine appears to have anticancer activity at one millionth the dose that shows toxicity. In preclinical trials, both as a stand-alone agent at low doses and in conjunction with chemotherapy at high doses, Betathine has proven to be effective against myeloma, melanoma, and human breast cancer xenografts, Taub says. Because it works by stimulating the immune system—the agent appears to increase the expression of HLA class 2 antigens that help the immune system recognize tumors—Betathine is potentially useful against a wide range of cancer types, as well as infectious diseases. Betathine has received orphan drug status for myeloma and metastatic melanoma in the US.

With eight employees, Dovetail is a virtual company. It conducts research on its compounds under material transfer agreements with several institutions, including the University of New Mexico, the University of Illinois , Brigham & Women's Hospitaland the Max Delbruck Center (Berlin).

The company is in the process of filing an IND, and plans to begin clinical trials onBetathine in 3rd quarter 1998 under the aegis of spin-off LifeTime Pharmaceuticals Inc., the drug approval division of Dovetail. Dovetail will continue preclinical development of anticancer compounds from five additional classes of compounds.

Seed funding for Dovetail was supplied by Dr. Taub. An additional private financing round was provided by a group of individual investors as well as by corporate partner Hauser Inc. , with which Dovetail has a bulk manufacturing agreement for Betathine.

Floyd Taub, the president of Dovetail, was the founder of Digene Diagnostics Inc., the developer of a diagnostic for human papilloma virus, the primary cause of cervical cancer. The company went public as Digene Corp. in 1996 (W#963200). Taub holds an MD from Northwestern University School of Medicine. Treasurer and VP of Business Affairs Samuel A. Sparks was previously CFO of MicroCarb Inc. (now Antex Biologics). Randall Daughenbaugh, PhD, founder and executive vice president of Hauser Inc., is a director of Dovetail.—MS