KYTHERA BIOPHARMACEUTICALS INC.
Headquarters: Calabasas
Founder-Chief Executive: Keith Leonard
Business: Injectable drug for the
aesthetic medicine market.
Amgen Inc. veteran Keith Leonard noticed that something was missing in the aesthetic medicine industry: scientific research to back up claims of beauty enhancement.
Also lacking: companies to meet the public’s desire for new products.
“Over the last 12 years there has been a lot of patient demand for novel prescription products in the facial aesthetics market,” Leonard said, “but not a lot of startup biopharma companies focused on that area.”
At an industry meeting in 2005, Leonard met two UCLA dermatologists, Adam Rotunda and Mike Kolodney. Their research had demonstrated that deoxycholic acid caused fat cell destruction in vitro.
So Leonard co-founded a venture capital-backed company, Kythera Biopharmaceuticals Inc., that year that licensed the doctors’ patent from LA BioMed. Through further research, Kythera developed a version of deoxycholic acid called ATX-101 that could be injected into the fat of the neck to reduce the double chins that often develop even in fit people as they age.
Leonard was especially excited about the prospect that ATX-101 could appeal to men in the facial aesthetics market, where patients are now 90 percent female.
“Market research shows that if men have wrinkles on their foreheads they’re not particularly bothered by them,” he said. “But if fat under their chin makes them look like their grandfather, or much heavier than they are, then getting rid of it is a pretty attractive prospect.”
Kythera spent six years and about $200 million conducting global clinical trials, with positive Phase III results from the United States and Canada announced on Sept. 16. Leonard plans to file for approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and expects sales to begin in 2015. The drug will be marketed under a name that is yet to be determined.
LA BioMed will get royalties on sales, Leonard said. He predicts that long-term U.S. and Canadian sales have the potential to reach $500 million annually.
“We think this will turn into a very large product that we can get into the hands of patients,” he said. Bayer HealthCare holds the rights to develop ATX-101 outside the U.S. and Canada.
One year ago, Kythera went public. As of this month, the company’s market cap was at $950 million. Shares have risen from $16 to about $45.
Leonard said LA BioMed was “incredibly important” to the company’s origins and to its success. “It’s harder than it looks to take these technologies and bring them out,” he said. “But when it works it’s really rewarding. LA BioMed is very good at getting their technology out into the world so it can be turned into real products.”
– Karen E. Klein
