Venturewire Lifesciences
Drug Therapies
Sound Pharmaceuticals Sees $160K Phase I SBIR Grant
By Estee Pierce
12/19/2002

SEATTLE -- Sound Pharmaceuticals, a biopharmaceutical company developing drugs to prevent and treat hearing loss, has received $160,000 in a Phase I grant from the National Intitute of Deafness and other Communication Disorders of the National Institutes of Health, VentureWire has learned.

Proceed from the research funds will be devoted to a basic research around cellular regeneration in the organ of corti (the sensory structure of the ear) and towards the development of drugs to restore hearing for patients with substantial hearing loss, according to Sound Pharmaceuticals president and CEO Jonathan Kil.

The company is developing compounds designed to antagonize growth inhibitory proteins so that normally non-dividing epithelial cells within the inner ear are able to divide, and have the capacity to become replacement auditory hair cells. These novel therapeutics will stimulate the regeneration of auditory hair cells, a developmental process that does not occur in humans after birth. Mr. Kil founded Sound Pharmaceuticals in Seattle a year ago from the assets and IP of his previous company, Otogene, which was disbanded after a conflict with its board in Germany. The company's pipeline also includes a lead program for drugs for the prevention of hearing loss, which will include a research collaboration with U.S. military personnel, who tend to be exposed to high levels of noise from firearms and jet planes. The company is also developing drugs that defend against chemotherapy-induced hearing loss.

To date Sound Pharmaceuticals has raised $1 million in a seed financing that included a $250,000 investment from Posco BioVentures, with the remainder coming from individual investors. The company is looking to raise $10 million in a Series A round that is anticipated to close in the first quarter of next year.