Anacor

AN2690
LFQDNHWZDQTITF-UHFFFAOYSA-N

Anacor Pharmaceuticals is another company challenging the notion that the IPO route is not a logical exit strategy for biotech companies these days. Interestingly IPOs have been pursued successfully even by companies that start from scratch developing their own compounds internally. Anacor joins the likes of Trius Therapeutics which had a successful IPO just a few weeks back. Trius works on the development of new antibacterials.  

Anacor is a platform technology company. They exploit the uses of boron chemistry. Here are two examples of their lead compounds:

AN2728
USZAGAREISWJDP-UHFFFAOYSA-N

AN2690 is an antifungal that has the ability to permeate nails (treatment of onychomycosis), which remains a problem because nail fungal infections are only controlled by compounds that are administered systemically and have significant side effects. AN2690 could be a significant development.

AN2728 is a phosphodiesterase inhibitor (PDE-4, leading to TNF-a inhibition) for psoriasis and atopic dermatitis.

Anacor has other compounds that have reached clinical trials and an active collaboration with GSK on the use of a compound derived from their platform as a systemic antibiotic.

The company raised its first venture round in 2002 and in 2005 got its first compounds in the clinic. The history of Trius is even more "modern" since it owes quite a bit of its success to the SBIR program from which it got substantial funds. These two examples show that there is still opportunity in small molecule drug discovery both for therapeutic area and also for platform technologies.