by Jodi Schwan, Sioux Falls Business Journal

April 20, 2011   Advances in medical technology are inching toward commercialization at startup businesses in Sioux Falls. One product under development was inspired by struggles to treat wounded soldiers in Iraq. “We were not able to stop chronic infections. Every eight hours you’d knock them down, and they’d be back again,” said Steven Keough, founder and president of pharmaCline. “It haunted me that we couldn’t solve that.”

Eighteen months ago, pharmaCline’s development efforts yielded a new technology to target bacteria. The progress has been rapid and the product – a topical ointment infused with liquid tetracycline – is showing great promise, he said.

“We have not found a bacteria that it doesn’t kill,” Keough said. “We have extraordinary results against the top 12 pathogens in the United States.”

The company has conducted human testing and found what Keough calls “powerful results.”

“People need it, they try it, and they’re amazed.”

PharmaCline formulas are listed as over the counter under U.S. Food and Drug Administration regulations. Keough hopes to begin generating revenue by this fall, through online sales and traditional pharmaceutical marketing.

“We’re setting back the clock against drug resistance by decades,” Keough said.

“Instead of a new antibiotic, we figured out how to make it (tetracycline) extraordinarily effective again, which is amazing.”

While the first products will be for first-aid use, the ointment can be combined with other drugs for use in areas such as dermatology or trauma surgery, Keough said.

He has hired two senior staff members and plans to add 15 more people this year, eventually reaching employment of 39 by 2013.

Pharmacline is in the South Dakota Technology Business Center. In the same building, another startup is close to commercializing a product to fight a disease that can lead to amputation.

PhotoBioMed is developing a product to treat peripheral arterial disease, a condition in which narrowed arteries reduce blood flow, often to the legs. Older people and diabetics are especially susceptible.

“Eventually, they have pain walking and then (possible) amputation, and there’s no good treatment right now,” said Ron Utecht, the company’s president. “The industry is looking for something.”

His company’s research has produced a chemical designed to improve the outcome of angioplasty in the arteries within the leg.

“We discovered it, we characterized it, we synthesized it, and, most importantly, we’ve taken our lab to the point where we can produce it with the quality needed to put into a person,” Utecht said.

PhotoBioMed created a spinoff company called Tetherx specifically for the new chemical. Researchers have worked on it since 2008 and hope to do the first human clinical trial this year. Utecht said he wants to start marketing it in 2013.

“It will definitely increase patient care,” he said. “I don’t see anything else on the horizon for this group of people. The treatment now is pretty minimal, so I think this could be life-changing.”

Utecht is searching for a company to manufacture the chemical.

“Hopefully, it’s in South Dakota. We’re from here and want to keep the economic development in our backyard.”