Eppin Pharma Founder Says NCBiotech Loan ‘Critical’ Lead-in to $225K NIH Grant

Michael O'Rand, Ph.D. -- Courtesy of Eppin Pharma

The president of a Chapel Hill pharmaceutical start-up company says a $75,000 Small Business Research Loan awarded late last year from the North Carolina Biotechnology Center was an “absolutely critical” lead-in to a $225,000 federal grant announced today.

“This money from NCBiotech was critical for enabling us to do what we needed to do with pharmacokinetics and toxicology studies, before we go into testing in primates,” said Michael O’Rand PhD, president and founder of Eppin Pharma.

“We also received some very helpful money from the Carolina KickStart program , but this loan from the Biotech Center really got us off the ground. We’re very thankful for this help with our toxicology and PK studies,” added O’Rand, a retired researcher from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Pharmacokinetics, often called simply PK, involves tracking the movement, and ultimate elimination of substances from the body, such as pharmaceuticals.

Eppin, a 2014 UNC spinout, is developing a reversible, oral, non-hormonal male contraceptive pill.

“We envision that our contraceptive will be administered orally and be taken on-demand a relatively short time before sexual activity,” said Eppin CEO Zahed Subhan, Ph.D. “Little has changed in the field of contraception in more than 50 years since the introduction of the birth control pill. Eppin Pharma’s approach is truly pioneering and offers a solution to an unmet need in family planning.

“An award from this highly competitive STTR program is a testimony to the importance and potential breakthrough opportunity associated with a novel form of contraception that does not disrupt hormonal systems.”

The company’s $225,000 Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR, phase 1) grant from the National Institutes of Health will help it evaluate the effectiveness of its lead contraceptive candidate, EP007, in primates.

“This funding is shared between a company and a university, in this case the Oregon National  Primate Research Center in Beaverton, near Portland,” said O’Rand. "We’re sharing the NIH money with them, and they’ll be helping us do preliminary tests to see if the drug comes out in the semen. It’s not a fertility test.”

NCBiotech’s Small Business Research Loans fund research that advances small life science companies’ development of commercially viable technologies/products. The loans help companies reach specific and meaningful research milestones that position them to obtain additional funding from private and public sources.

Eppin also participates in the NCBiotech BATON Referral Network. BATON features a searchable database of prequalified service providers and CEO candidates representing a vast array of business and technical expertise. Service providers pledge to contribute services or provide preferential pricing for referrals coming through the BATON network from registered BATON companies.

Since its inception six years ago, Carolina KickStart has been active in developing and launching startup companies based on UNC intellectual property. It is part of the North Carolina Translational and Clinical Sciences Institute, home of UNC’s Clinical and Translational Science Awards program. The CTSA program is led by the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences at the NIH.