Five Questions With: Dr. Yow-Pin Lim

Dr. Yow-Pin Lim, founder and CEO of ProThera Biologics in Providence, talks with Providence Business News about his company’s partnership with ProMetic Life Sciences Inc., its move last year to the Jewelry District, and how it is on track to start clinical trials of its lead therapeutic product next year. The company currently employs seven.

PBN: It’s only been a few months, but how is the partnership with ProMetic Life Sciences going?

LIM: The partnership with ProMetic is very significant to us as it allows us access to clinical-grade inter-alpha inhibitors for human clinical testing. In the past few months since the official partnership announcement we have been very active in tech transfer and further development activities. So far, we believe that we have made the right decision to partner with ProMetic as they are very focused and committed to advance this project to the clinic. More importantly, they share our excitement about the potential of our main innovative product, inter-alpha inhibitor proteins to treat many life-threatening diseases. We are currently on track with the plan to start the clinical trials of our lead therapeutic product in 2017.

PBN: How much has ProThera raised to date in funding?

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LIM: To date, we have raised a total of $8 million in funding to support our innovative research. The majority of the funding came from non-dilutive research grant awards. We are very fortunate that in the past 14 years we have been supported continuously through several Phase I and II Small Business Innovative Research grants from the National Institutes of Health. We are also thankful that we received collaborative research grant awards from Rhode Island Science and Technology Advisory Council as well as matching funds for our SBIR grants from the Innovate Rhode Island Small Business Fund. We also received investments from the Slater Technology Fund and a private investor totaling $750,000. As we have built a firm scientific foundation, and the manufacturing partner is in place, this is a great time to invest in ProThera. We are ready to move to the next level by seeking additional funding from equity investment firms, and corporate partners to execute our clinical program swiftly. In addition we will continue to obtain non-dilutive research grant funding and Denice (Spero, the president and chief business officer) is also seeking Impact Investors and investments from Family Offices.

PBN: Why did you want to become a doctor?

LIM: When I was 10 years old, I already dreamed to become a medical doctor. I was fascinated with the clinical skills of doctors in helping their patients and treating their diseases. After finishing medical school, I decided to become a scientist to do research in the laboratory and I fell in love with biochemistry especially in studying complex biomolecules that control our body functions. I am determined to do research to find new treatment to fight life-threatening diseases. As a doctor, we can help patients one at a time but by being a research scientist to discover something useful can be rewarding in the sense that we can help thousands of patients at once, not only here but worldwide.

PBN: How did you become interested in the treatment of orphan diseases and sepsis?

LIM: The orphan diseases are actually the focus of ProMetic with their business model to develop effective treatments for rare diseases. As our partner, ProMetic has licensed access to two clinical indications of our lead therapeutic proteins. At ProThera, we will focus our initial efforts on life-threatening systemic inflammatory diseases such as sepsis/shock syndrome and ischemic stroke and we are carefully considering our first clinical indication to test in patients. We have very exciting pre-clinical data and are pursuing clinical indications where there is only a very limited or no effective treatment available. We are targeting unmet clinical needs.

PBN: Also, how is your new space in the Jewelry District working out?

LIM: We are very happy with our rented space in the Jewelry District. It is located centrally and adjacent to the Slater Fund office and to the research facilities of our collaborators at Lifespan, Brown University, Women & Infants’ Hospital and URI Providence. The location is certainly very helpful in increasing our interaction with our academic collaborators. We also enjoy being close to the other biotech companies in Providence plus we have some space in our building that we sublease out. There is a device company in one part of the space and we are seeking another company for the other lab and office. Putting scientists together in close proximity is where ideas are generated.

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