New Clinical Trials For Liposome
Name Changes: Symbiance and J. Dana
New in Town: Pharmacia & Upjohn
Expansions: Drug Venture Capital
Corrections or additions?
These articles by Barbara Fox were published in U.S. 1 Newspaper
on August 18, 1999. All rights reserved.
Princeton Brand Econometrics
Barry L. Tannenholz and Kent Stephan have devised
statistical
and mathematical models for market research, especially for the
pharmaceutical
industry. The company they founded eight years ago recently switched
Carnegie Center spaces, moving into an office formerly occupied by
Technology New Jersey.
Primarily for the major pharmaceutical companies, they build models
for forecasting and planning in the areas of marketing and sales.
Acknowledging that it might sound pompous, Stephan declares that these
models demonstrate, for marketers, the equivalent of Isaac Newton’s
law of gravity — something that is inerrantly correct but that
was not intuitive: "We have discovered there are fundamental
mathematical
relationships," he says, "but we can’t patent the stuff, and
that is one of our biggest problems."
Instead of selling the method, his consultants must apply the method
to particular problems, such as "How many samples should we hand
out for a certain rate of return on the last sample?" or "What
would happen at different levels of sales calls against doctors?"
Another problem might be "What would happen with a particular
direct-to-consumer ad — what would be the incremental business
for a certain amount spent?"
Tannenholz went to University of California at Berkeley and has
master’s
and doctoral degrees. He was a protege of the late David Ogilvy, who
worked in market research in Princeton but then founded his own firm,
Ogilvy & Mather, in New York. Stephan graduated from Penn State in
1971, has an MBA from the University of Chicago, and had been vice
president of sales and marketing for Schering Plough’s
over-the-counter
business. In addition to the two-person Princeton office, there are
five employees in Manhattan’s Wall Street area. The firm recently
announced a joint venture with Interpublic, a New York-based holding
company for advertising and marketing companies, but Stephan and
Tannenholz
retained a majority share.
The alternative for pharmaceutical companies not using his services?
"To look at situations they consider comparable to their own,"
says Stephan, "using lots of judgment and rules of thumb."
Such rules of thumb, he implies, are much less accurate. Declining
to price the models, Stephan will say only, "They make people
a lot of money."
Center, Suite 110, Princeton 08540. Barry L. Tannenholz, chief
methodologist.
609-987-1111; fax, 609-987-0588.
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New Clinical Trials For Liposome
Princeton Forrestal Center, Princeton 08540-6619. Charles A. Baker,
chairman and CEO. 609-452-7060; fax, 609-452-1890. Home page:
On August 11 Rhone-Poulenc Rorer Pharmaceuticals and
the Liposome Company announced they will collaborate on clinical
trials
to evaluate drugs they have under development for first-line treatment
of metastatic breast cancer.
"We are pleased that Rhone-Poulenc Rorer shares our interest in
the benefits that such combination efforts will bring to
patients,"
says James A. Boyle, senior voice president of the Liposome Company.
Evacet is an anticancer drug, formulated by Liposome, that is a
variation
of the drug doxorubicin, which has the ability to cause permanent
heart damage. When used in combination with cyclophosphamide (CPA),
Evacet has been shown to have anti-tumor activity that is "not
inferior" to a combination of doxorubicin and CPA but with less
likelihood of damage to the heart. Now the company will do a test
using Evacet with Taxotere (docetaxel), a drug developed by
Rhone-Poulenc
Rorer.
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Name Changes: Symbiance and J. Dana
08540. Shawki Salem Ph.D, president. 609-243-9050; fax, 609-243-9007.
This 10-year-old company has changed its name twice
and is making a third change. First known as Princeton Biostatistics
Group it changed to Princeton Biosciences Group, then back to the
original. The new name — Symbiance — is meant to reflect the
company mission, that it will be a full-service development company,
not just a provider of biostatistics and data management support to
pharmaceutical firms. The name also implies that the 14-person firm’s
strengths are its relationships, says Jonathan J. Salem, operations
and development director. It does protocol design, processing, and
analysis of clinical data.
Disposal
Division, 11 Princess Road, Suite A and B, Lawrenceville
08648-2319.
Jack Yarin, director. 609-844-1025; fax, 609-844-1024. Home page:
J. Dana Associates Inc. has merged with Clinical Trial Services in
Audubon, Pennsylvania, and has changed its name. It does packaging,
distribution, accountability, and disposal of new and experimental
drugs used in clinical research trials. (U.S. 1, November 1, 1992).
Yarin went to Columbia University College of Pharmacy and has 30 years
experience in the pharmaceutical industry, including research planning
jobs for Warner Lambert’s and Schering Plough’s domestic and
international
divisions.
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Expansion: NOP Healthcare
Square,
Suite 441, Princeton 08542. 609-688-0540; fax, 609-688-0542. Home
page: http://www.mmi-research.com
The healthcare business unit of a larger market research
group based in northern New Jersey opened an eight-person office in
1 Palmer Square last year. Formerly known as NOP Healthcare Advanced
Consulting Group, it has expanded by merger and changed its name;
it tripled its space, going from 1,225 feet to 4,225 feet, and will
add to its current 10 employees.
The owner is a United Kingdom-based conglomerate traded on the London
Stock Exchange, United News & Media (UNM). The owner has merged NOP
Healthcare (known as a multi-country research expert) with Market
Measures Inc. (MMI, a Livingston-based supplier of in-depth market
and disease state analyses), and Strategic Marketing Corporation (SMC,
which does medical marketing research). These three companies together
have doubled in size over the past three years.
"By uniting MML, SMC, and NOP Healthcare, we are creating an
information
powerhouse that can meet the full spectrum of marketing research
needs,"
says Elaine Riddell, president of MMI and new CEO of UHG. James
Westbrook
is in charge of the Princeton office. The first joint product of the
combined companies will be direct-to-consumer advertising, a marketing
category for which spending now exceeds $1 billion.
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New in Town: Pharmacia & Upjohn
at Princeton, Princeton 08540. Scott Breed, regional operations
manager.
609-452-1700; fax, 609-452-7616. Home page:
Pharmacia and Upjohn, makers of the incontinence drug Detrol, was
founded in the mid-1800s by companies in Italy, Sweden, and the U.S.
Over the past 150 years, the company has swallowed up more than 20
others to make it a multinational pharmaceutical company that spends
$1 billion a year on R&D, and employs nearly 30,000 people (1,000
in New Jersey).
The company’s London headquarters was relocated to Bridgewater in
1998, part of a turnaround process initiated by new CEO Fred Hassan.
The headquarters is relocating again to Peapack. A small sales team
works out of a temporary office at 103 Carnegie Center and will move
into the new building at 7 Roszel Road by the end of the year.
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Expansions: Drug Venture Capital
Princeton 08542. Pasquale DeAngelis, chief financial officer.
609-430-1560;
fax, 609-430-1127. Home page:
http://www.proquestinvestments.com.
Jeremy Goldberg and Jay Moorin are partners in this venture capital
firm that focuses on cancer research. It closed $100 million in July,
has made three investments to date, and is looking at some others.
The four-person firm will soon have eight people and will be moving
to a 2,200 square foot space on the third floor. Construction starts
in the middle of September.
Corrections or additions?
This page is published by PrincetonInfo.com
— the web site for U.S. 1 Newspaper in Princeton, New Jersey.
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