Triangle drug company specializes in side-effects of cancer therapy

MORRISVILLE -- Like a marriage with children, the Triangles newest health care company is out of the starting gate with two market-ready cancer drugs and a third on the way.

Vestiq Pharmaceuticals made its public debut this month with a risk-aversive business model designed to eliminate the lottery factor in the pharmaceutical field.

Rather than assign scientists to toil in laboratories and lawyers to grind it out in regulatory proceedings, the Morrisville company essentially functions as a marketing and lobbying organization for new niche drugs.

Vestiq gets involved only at the point when a drug is approved for safe use by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, but yet not widely accepted by doctors, pharmacies and insurance companies. Getting approved meds into circulation can be labor intensive, requiring scores of sales pitches and clinical presentations across the country.

We dont develop, we dont manufacture, said Vestiq CEO Marty Baum. As a newer entity, a self-funded company, we cant afford a product thats not a 95 percent probability.

Betting on overlooked or obscure medications is an option for smaller, underfunded companies to establish themselves. "I would not call it a dominant model but an emerging model, said Steve Stefano, managing partner at Cary-based Synopia Rx, one of Vestiqs partners. If a company like Vestiq can put 50 or 100 sales reps behind a product, it can reflect the sales curve upwards.

Earlier this month Vestiq announced its formation, after Baum and other pharmaceutical veterans spent more than a year lining up all the pieces.

The terms of Vestiqs business deals are confidential except a marketing alliance in which Vestiq will pay $44 million over four years to market Oravig, an oral tablet placed under the lip to treat mouth sores caused by radiation therapy.

Vestiqs other product, Zuplenz, is a dissolvable tongue strip that treats nausea and vomiting caused by radiation, chemotherapy and surgery.

Both are known treatments in pill form, but Vestiqs versions have new delivery mechanisms.

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Triangle drug company specializes in side-effects of cancer therapy