Pantarhei Bioscience

Pantarhei Bioscience B.V. develops innovative, patent protected, medical uses of existing compounds (hormones, biologicals, drugs and combinations thereof), characterised by proven safety. The area of interest of Pantarhei Bioscience (PRB) has evolved during the first six years of the existence of the company from Reproductive Medicine to Gender-related Medicine.
Reproductive Medicine (RM) includes subspecialties such as contraception, infertility, hormone replacement therapy (HRT) and hormone dependent osteoporosis. Traditionally the focus in RM is more on women than on men. Gender-related Medicin (GRM) has been defined at PRB as all diseases that 'behave' differently in men and women. These differences are to a large extend steroid hormone related and start early during prenatal life, resulting in differences in anatomy, steroid hormone concentrations and differences in steroid hormone receptor distribution and function. This development from RM to GRM has extended the area of interest of PRB beyond RM to fields such as, but not exclusively, oncology (breast- and prostate cancer), cardiovascular disease and auto-immune diseases (Multiple Sclerosis, Rheumatoid Arthritis).
A second important development at PRB has been a shift from using existing drugs to an additional focus on the use of steroid hormones derived from the feto-placental metabolism and occuring during pregnancy. Such hormones have never been used as drugs before and carry the implicit advantages of being natural human hormones, implying the likelihood of safety when developed into a drug for human use.

The business concept of PRB is to patent, protect and develop new treatment concepts untill and including proof-of-concept in the human phase. Activities are outsourced as much as possible to keep the PRB organisation lean and inexpensive. Once the patent approval process and the data are positive, the concept should be licensed out to 'big pharma' for final clinical development, regulatory approval and sales & marketing. Outlicensing contracts will generally include a signing fee, milestone payments and a royalty percentage.

Since early 2001, PRB has built up a mature portfolio of projects in development phases varying from late preclinical to clinical phase III.