US biotech investor Celtic Therapeutics gets $100m commitment, partnership from PPD

Celtic Therapeutics will focus on mid-stage drug development candidates that have progressed through human proof-of-concept studies and are targeted to address unmet medical needs, seeking to advance development of these drug candidates.

Both Celtic Therapeutics and PPD are committed to forging a new framework for timely, cost-efficient drug development. The goal of the alliance is to bring the best products to market more quickly to meet the unmet needs of patients.

PPD’s work provides discovery, development and post‐approval services for pharmaceutical, biotechnology, medical device, academic and government organisations.

Peter Corr, Celtic Therapeutics co-founder and general partner, said, “The present approach to drug development has become too expensive and time consuming. We look forward to working innovatively with PPD on new approaches for rapid planning, decision-making and execution of our drug development programmes worldwide. We are delighted Fred Eshelman and his team will be working with us in this endeavor.”

Fred Eshelman, executive chairman of PPD, added, “Celtic Therapeutics has a team of seasoned drug development professionals we believe is capable of building one of the most highly valued late stage portfolios in the global biomedical industry. As pharmaceutical companies continue to face extraordinary regulatory and market-related challenges in creating and expanding their drug development pipelines, Celtic has developed an innovative, product-focused investment model to address these challenges.”

Last month, Celtic agreed to invest up to $15m in a UK-based DNA-interactive drug developer Spirogen. The funding will be used by Spirogen to develop a new drug to combat cancer.

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