Acorn’s Opportunity

Most biotechnology start-up companies initially focus on a single technology platform or class of compounds, and build an expensive infrastructure dedicated to that mission. In addition to the inherent biologic risks that a product may ultimately not turn out to be useful or safe, many start-ups face weaknesses in their execution of the drug development process that lead them to burn through extensive capital resources.

Acorn has an advantage because we:

• Assess molecular and biologic mechanisms and products in relation to their likelihood for success;
• Efficiently design and conduct pre-clinical studies to enable clinical testing;
• Accurately detect and respond to early predictive signals that may prevent the company from expending capital on products with limited promise;
• Possess extensive experience in efficiently navigating regulatory hurdles to product approval and commercialization.

The Acorn Edge

Acorn, as a clinical accelerator, has assembled a core team of experienced drug development personnel who have the experience to manage and overcome drug discovery and regulatory development challenges.  Additionally, our team will be supported by consulting experts in relevant therapeutic and product development areas.

We will succeed by acquiring and developing several unique product technologies in parallel, focusing on those products that possess a clinical proof-of-principle. Through our established relationships with academic and private institutions, we will identify and dispassionately evaluate potential technology acquisitions. We will design and execute efficient Phase I/II product development programs, during which we will critically evaluate emerging predictive signals to focus our resources on only the most promising compounds. Development timing and costs will be minimized by judicious use of outsourcing. The result will be an optimized flow of novel compounds through an efficient and cost-effective Phase I/II clinical testing program, leading to a continuing highly-profitable stream of out-licensing and milestone revenue events and sales.