Husband, wife work to better skin health
Aaron J. Latham / Staff
Science of Skin: Mike and Elaine Jacobson moved their biotech firm, Niadyne, from Kentucky to Tucson in October. They are creating products that prevent the skin cancer process from occuring.
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By Jane Erikson
ARIZONA DAILY STAR
Husband and wife researchers Mike and Elaine Jacobson have achieved a perfect marriage of science and business.
Married for 33 years, the two began working together as graduate students at Kansas State University, where both became interested in how skin cells are damaged over time.
Five years ago, they realized their research on the vitamin niacin could help millions of people worldwide.
The result is Niadyne Inc., an early stage biotech company the Jacobsons brought to Tucson in November, when they moved here from the University of Kentucky.
Niadyne is pursuing two major areas of research: skin health - particularly reversing sun damage to prevent skin cancer - and cholesterol control.
Those are two rapidly expanding markets that will only continue to grow, as baby boomers advance toward senior citizenhood and its increased risks of everything from wrinkles to skin cancer to heart disease.
The company is expected to branch out into cancer treatment and products to reduce damage from heart attack and stroke.
Elaine Jacobson is president of Niadyne and Mike Jacobson the company's chief scientific officer. Both are biochemists on the research faculty of the Arizona Cancer Center, and professors in the University of Arizona College of Pharmacy.
"It was an entwined web of affiliations and interests that enticed us to Tucson," said Elaine Jacobson.
One was the collaborative arrangement of colleges and specialty centers at the Arizona Health Sciences Center.
The Jacobsons also were eager to work alongside two cancer drug development superstars - Daniel Von Hoff, director of the Arizona Cancer Center, and Laurence Hurley, a medicinal chemist on the center's faculty. The four got to know each other when they all worked in Texas; the Jacobsons at the University of North Texas Health Sciences Center at Fort Worth, Von Hoff and Hurley with the University of Texas in San Antonio and Austin, respectively.
Since Niadyne was founded in May 1997, the Jacobsons have raised close to $7 million in venture capital. They expect to bring their first product, an anti-aging skin lotion, to market by early 2002.
"We were just trying to understand how things work," Mike Jacobson said of the couple's pre-Niadyne endeavors. "And then one morning you wake up and realize how this basic knowledge can really help people."
The Jacobsons attribute their financial success to Niadyne co-founder and CEO Richard Brown, who was experienced in biotech entrepreneurship.
The couple recall a cold and rainy week in New York in December 1998, which they spent "running up and down Manhattan," keeping one appointment after another with venture capitalists whom Brown had arranged for them to meet. Niadyne got started with $1 million in angel money.
But the Jacobsons also have done well competing for research grants from the National Institutes of Health. They've won $15 million in grants over the last 18 years, a time when competition for the grants has steadily intensified.
When they came here from Kentucky in November, the Jacobsons brought nearly 20 of their employees with them. Most are employed by both Niadyne and the UA.
The Jacobsons expect their first product - a compound they call Pro-NAD - to be marketed by early next year, giving them entry into the growing cosmeceuticals market, which has annual sales surpassing $2 billion in the United States alone. As skin ages, it becomes deficient in NAD, the active form of niacin. Taking niacin in vitamin form does little to repair damaged skin. The Jacobsons developed a molecular Topical Bioconversion Delivery System that solves the delivery problem.
The Jacobsons have found that delivering NAD to cells damaged by age, sun or environmental toxins actually promotes DNA repair, restoring skin health and preventing future damage.
Pro-NAD will be marketed in a lotion made by Niadyne, or as an ingredient in another company's skin care product, Mike Jacobson said, and sold through pharmacists and physicians' offices.
The Jacobsons are counting on revenues from Pro-NAD to fund their ongoing development of niacin as a cholesterol-modulating agent.
The market for such drugs, which include Lipitor and Zocor, is approaching $15 billion worldwide, Mike Jacobson said. But while the drugs do an excellent job of lowering blood LDL - low-density lipoprotein, or "bad" cholesterol, they have little or no affect on HDL - high-density lipoprotein, or "good" cholesterol.
Niacin is known for its ability to raise HDL, but taking niacin orally can cause an uncomfortable, all-over flush. The Jacobsons' Topical Bioconversion Delivery System solves the problem, getting niacin into the bloodstream through a patch worn on the skin, or in a lotion that is rubbed into the skin. Neither method has caused side effects in early studies.
And the benefits are easily predicted: Studies have shown that for every 6 percent increase in HDL, a person's risk of dying from heart disease is lowered 22 percent.
