BioNumerik Pharmaceuticals

About BioNumerik Pharmaceuticals

BioNumerik Pharmaceuticals, Inc. operated as a pharmaceutical company with a focus on oncology. The company was founded in 1992 by Dr. Frederick H. Hausheer, a medical oncologist and researcher. Dr. Hausheer established the company to merge medicine, quantum and statistical mechanics, and supercomputing to discover and develop new cancer drugs, a frustration-born response to what he observed as a lack of effective and less toxic treatment options. The company's name itself reflects this interdisciplinary approach, combining "Bio" for various biological sciences with "Numerik" for high-level, numerically intensive supercomputing. His background includes a medical degree from the University of Missouri, a fellowship in medical oncology at Johns Hopkins University, and extensive experience in drug discovery and development.

BioNumerik's business model centered on the discovery, development, and commercialization of novel drugs for cancer treatment and supportive care. The company's approach integrated chemistry, biology, and physics-based molecular simulations on high-performance computers to model how drugs and their targets interact, aiming to reduce the time and cost of development. Revenue was anticipated through the commercial sale of its drug candidates and strategic alliances with other pharmaceutical companies for development and marketing. The company formed alliances to commercialize its products outside the United States and Canada, such as with Takeda Pharmaceutical for its drug Tavocept.

The company's pipeline included two main late-stage clinical drug candidates: Tavocept (also known as BNP7787 or dimesna) and Karenitecin (BNP1350). Tavocept was developed as a chemoprotective agent to be administered alongside chemotherapy drugs like taxanes and platinum-based agents. Its purpose was to prevent or decrease common side effects such as neuropathy (nerve damage) and kidney toxicity, and it showed potential to increase patient survival in certain lung cancer types. Karenitecin, a camptothecin-class chemotherapy drug, was developed to have fewer side-effects and an improved safety profile compared to existing drugs in its class. By 2010, both Tavocept and Karenitecin were in Phase III clinical trials. The company's website went offline around January 2019, and it is considered out of business. In August 2016, Lantern Pharma entered into an agreement to evaluate Tavocept using its proprietary platform.