Biotech company G1 Therapeutics preps for approval of first drug and a growing staff
As it preps to get its first cancer-treatment drug approved by regulators, G1 Therapeutics, a publicly-traded biotechnology company in Research Triangle Park, has moved into a larger office to support its growing headcount.
The company recently traded a cramped office space in Research Triangle Park to join the growing Frontier campus, as its headcount pushed past 100 employees earlier this month.
The Frontier is a collection of former IBM buildings that the Research Triangle Foundation has poured millions into to make it attractive to startups and other companies. It is one part of the greater Park Center development that Park officials hope will turn Research Triangle Park into a live-work-play destination rather than just a collection of office buildings.
G1 Therapeutics, which spun out of intellectual property made at UNC-Chapel Hill, moved into the 700 building on the campus, giving the company 60,000 square feet of space.
In what once housed servers for IBM, G1 Therapeutics has put desks, offices, meeting rooms and lab space where it is hoping to find new drug discoveries.
The office not only gives the company much needed space to grow but also an attractive space to use in recruitment of new talent. The company’s building is adjacent to the under-construction Boxyard, a collection of shipping containers that will create a hub of restaurants, cafes and breweries.
“It’s more than just driving to a building and leaving a building every afternoon,” Terry Murdock, G1’s chief operating office, said of the Boxyard. “There’s options for you and for your family to meet here and spend time.”
NDA with the FDA
The move comes as the company applies for a new drug application, or NDA, with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to put Trilaciclib, its flagship product, on the market. It’s a significant step as the company currently has no products on the market.
Trilaciclib is used in conjunction with chemotherapy. G1 Therapeutics said trials have shown the drug to reduce chemo-related side effects on white and red blood cells, leading to a reduction in infections and transfusions.
The company is hoping to get its application submitted early next year for use in small-cell lung cancer patients — but it also plans to conduct trials for its expansion to uses in triple negative breast cancer and colorectal cancer.
“We have been working five-plus years toward this goal,” G1 Therapeutics CEO Mark Velleca said in an interview. “It would be our first opportunity to generate revenue.”
Velleca said the hope is the FDA would approve Trilaciclib for use in lung cancer and then the company could apply for uses in other cancers. That would make the product available to potentially thousands of patients around the world.
Because cancer patients often have low red and white blood cell counts, they are often fatigued and are at risk of infection, Velleca said.
“So this drug protects the bone marrow, which gives rise to all these really important cells — red cells and white cells and platelets — from being damaged by chemo,” he said. “So the patients don’t have as much anemia, neutropenia, thrombocytopenia, and they don’t need [as many] rescue interventions.”
The company’s products are based on discoveries by former UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center director Norman E. Sharpless, who is now the acting commissioner of Food and Drugs at the FDA. In 2017, the company raised more than $100 million in an initial public offering.
While it makes no revenue at the moment, the company does have more than $300 million in cash on hand, a sum that Velleca said should give the company enough money to operate into 2021.
“It gives us plenty of runway to get through this next set of milestones,” he said.
Those milestones include getting approval for Trilaciclib, but also beginning to move G1’s next set of drugs through the development pipeline. In addition to Trilaciclib, the company has two drugs in development for breast cancer treatments, though they are still in early stages.
If the trials are successful, it could lead to more hiring at G1 Therapeutics. While the company currently is using two floors of the 700 building at The Frontier, it has the option to expand to a third floor as well.
This story was produced with financial support from a coalition of partners led by Innovate Raleigh as part of an independent journalism fellowship program. The N&O maintains full editorial control of the work. Learn more; go to bit.ly/newsinnovate
This story was originally published October 31, 2019 at 10:50 AM.
