FierceBiotech, a biotech industry-oriented website, highlights 15 promising companies on their 2007 Fierce 15 list.These 15 companies were chosen because they “are all about the risks and potential rewards that lie in wait for any biotech company… All deserve close attention as they push ahead, breaking new ground in an industry that depends on a steady stream of innovations to keep advancing the promise of medical breakthroughs made possible through new therapies.”

The list includes:

• Anacor Pharmaceuticals: Anacor’s work in boron chemistry has produced 20 patent applications. To date, Anacor has focused on applications in dermatology, including a mid-stage therapy for onychomycosis, a fungal infection of the nail and nail bed.
• Archemix: Archemix focuses on aptamers, nucleotides that bind to proteins with specificity. It has five compounds in development, including ARC1779, which reduces platelet aggregation and thrombosis by inhibition of von Willebrand Factor.
• PTC Therapeutics: PTC Therapeutics’ lead candidate, PTC124, was effective in treating a particular group of patients with Duchenne muscular dystrophy triggered by nonsense mutations, and may also prove to be effective in dealing with the nonsense mutations involved in other genetic disorders like cystic fibrosis and Hurler’s disease.
• Syndax Pharmaceuticals: Syndax is a “virtual biotech company” that outsources the bulk of drug discovery work and then in-licenses promising therapies.
• TargeGen: TargeGen’s development program is based on early research into an Src kinase inhibitor that could prevent edema, or leakage from blood vessels.

To see the complete list, click here.

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