ABOUT US
Research strategy: To avoid the high costs and long lead times
needed for target discovery, Galaxy selects a limited number of targets that have already
been described in the scientific literature but have not been exploited for
various reasons, such as difficulty in developing suitable mAbs.
Business strategy: Stay focused on research by
outlicensing product candidates at the preclinical stage to larger pharmaceutical or biotechnology
companies.
Brief company history. Research activities began at the Company in 2002. Galaxy has not sought venture capital
funding, instead relying initially on funding from its founders, then on Phase
I and Phase II SBIR grants, and now on a combination of SBIR grants and
funding from its corporate partners. As a result,
the Company has grown slowly, and currently has 9 employees, 5 of them
Ph.D.-level scientists and 2 of them at the research assistant level, with
a high level of expertise in molecular and cell biology, immunology, and/or
animal models. Galaxy
leases approximately 3000 sq. ft of laboratory space, which was fully built out and equipped according to the
Company’s specifications.
The Company’s initial program was the development of a monoclonal
antibody (mAb) against Hepatocyte Growth Factor (HGF), a growth factor believed
to play an important role in the growth
of many tumors and in angiogenesis. This
mAb potently inhibits the ability of HGF to stimulate growth of cells in
vitro and to induce the first steps of angiogenesis. No anti-HGF mAb with these properties had
previously been described in the scientific literature. Treatment with this mAb strongly inhibits the
growth of cells from human glioma tumors, the most common type of brain cancer,
as well as other tumor types, as subcutaneous or orthotopic xenografts in mice. Based on these exciting results, in 2006
Galaxy licensed a humanized form of the mAb to Takeda Pharmaceutical Company for clinical development and potential
marketing. This was a transformative
event for Galaxy Biotech, as it established a more stable financial basis for
further research activities. Takeda performed
all preclinical and manufacturing
activities to file an IND for the humanized mAb and in
2009-2010 conducted a Phase I clinical trial in advanced non-hematologic malignancies. However,
due to its strategic prioritization, Takeda returned all rights to HuL2G7 to
Galaxy in July, 2012. Galaxy views this
as an opportunity to enter another licensing arrangement for development of HuL2G7
with a committed pharmaceutical partner.
More recently, the Company has developed novel mAbs against Fibroblast
Growth Factor 2 (FGF2) and FGF Receptor 2 (FGFR2). Both the growth factor and receptor play
important roles in angiogenesis and the growth of many tumors, especially
hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) for FGF2 and gastric cancer for FGFR2. The mAbs block all biological activities of
their targets and strongly inhibit growth of HCC and gastric tumor xenografts
respectively. In September 2012, Galaxy licensed worldwide development and commercialization rights for its anti-FGF2 program to Hoffmann-La Roche.