By Timothy Tankosic, M.D.

Convergent therapeutics are drug-device combinations that may be defined functionally as the site-specific delivery of a therapeutic modality (or the site-specific availability of compounds in convergent diagnostic tests). Convergent product development is gaining momentum because it may provide answers to complex medical problems with large market potentials. Table 1 lists 15 companies and briefly describes their activities in convergent product development. Much of the information below was obtained at Convergence 2005: The Drug/Device Summit, a conference held recently in Pittsburgh, PA. Organizers included Windhover Information, Inc. (Norwalk, CT), Pittsburgh Life Sciences Greenhouse (Pittsburgh, PA), and others. For a review of convergent product development issues and companies not addressed below, see "Drug-Device Convergence: Development Challenges and Market Opportunities" in the June issue of Drug & Market Development.

Table 1

Convergent Product Development: Select company activities

Source: D&MD

Regardless of the therapeutic market pursued, all companies developing convergent products share a common strategy--the pursuit of products for indications with large market potential that support high-value products. ARC Pharmaceuticals is a University of British Columbia spin-off focused on prevention of surgical adhesions. ARCAD™ liquid instillate is an anti-inflammatory, which is loaded into a polymer barrier as a liquid. Although worldwide sales for this market are only around $300-$500 million per year, the potential for rapid growth is clear because surgical adhesions cause serious medical problems (morbidity and mortality) and may require costly surgical lysing. The current therapy (i.e., inert polymers) is not very effective; therefore, unmet medical need is great. This market condition is somewhat analogous to that of the cardiovascular stent market before drug-eluting stents; that is, serious morbidity and mortality problems caused by stent closure during the first 3 months after placement. Effective prevention of surgical adhesions could lead to the development of a large market for these products, just as the development of drug-eluting stents solved the restenosis problem and created a large market for a new class of products. ARC will seek a large company partner for commercialization of ARCAD. See Table 2.

Table 2

Surgical Adhesions Market

Source: ARC Pharmaceuticals, Inc.; Presented at Convergence 2005: The Drug/Device Summit.

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