March 26, 2007 — Arrowhead Research Corp. has formed a new wholly-owned subsidiary and has agreed to acquire the assets, as well as the name, of C Sixty, Inc. (C-60), a company pioneering the development of drugs based on buckministerfullerenes.
“The future of medicine lies in targeted delivery of therapeutics through nanotechnology,” said R. Bruce Stewart, Arrowhead’s Chairman. “Our experience and expertise in this area makes C-60 a great strategic complement to our other majority owned subsidiaries.”
Buckministerfullerenes, also known as fullerenes or buckyballs, are a highly structured, water soluble, nanoscale form of carbon, similar to carbon nanotubes, discovered by Richard Smalley, who received the Nobel Prize for his work in this area. The molecules allow drug designers the opportunity to attach therapeutic and targeting chemical groups in many configurations.
C-60 has secured and developed a strong patent position covering the strategic biomedical uses of fullerenes. Initially, the company will focus on the antioxidant activity of fullerenes. Arrowhead believes that drugs based on fullerene antioxidant molecules may have significant impact on several unsolved diseases, including Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s, stroke, atherosclerosis, complications from diabetes and protection of bone marrow cells from cancer chemotherapy and radiotherapy. Solutions for any of these diseases could represent billion dollar annual market opportunities.
In December 2004, C-60 merged with CNI, which calls itself the world leader in the production of single-wall and other small-diameter carbon nanotubes. On March 22 Unidym acquired CNI.
Arrowhead Research Corporation is a publicly-traded nanotechnology company commercializing new technologies in the areas of life sciences, electronics, and energy. The company also operates two other majority owned subsidiaries commercializing nanotherapeutics. Calando Pharmaceuticals is a leading RNAi company specializing in the design and delivery of siRNA therapeutics. Insert Therapeutics is commercializing drug-delivery-enhanced small-molecule therapeutics and nucleic acids. Insert’s first anti-cancer drug candidate is in Phase I clinical trials.