Western States Biopharmaceuticals was founded in January 2009 and is a privately-held firm based on intellectual property from the University of Colorado Denver, Anschutz Medical Center. The mission is to develop novel therapies that selectively modulate adaptive immunity to treat inflammatory diseases, and the products are based on the discovery of TCISMs, proteins that selectively regulate the adaptive immune process. Blocking TCISMs can stop the destructive cytokines that lead to disability in inflammatory diseases.

Two CU faculty play key roles for WSB…

Carl K. Edwards, III, Ph.D. Is Chief Scientific Officer and Co-Founder.Dr. Edwards has 20 years of leadership in inflammation drug discovery and development at Amgen, Marion Merrell Dow (now Aventis-Sanofi), Schering, and the University of Colorado Denver, Anschutz Medical Campus. Since 1995, he has been a faculty member as an Associate Professor, in the Department of Dermatology and also holds faculty appointments in the Division of Infectious Diseases and Rheumatology.

Dr. Edwards was named as inventor of a novel second generation soluble TNFα receptor molecule, PEG sTNF-R1 (Pegsunercept™), and he led the Clinical Research Project Team at Amgen from discovery (1995-1997), through preclinical (1998), to the end of Phase II clinical development (1999 – 2002). Dr. Edwards was also a core member of the Interleukin-1 receptor antagonist (IL-1ra; Kineret®) Biological License Application team and headed up the Preclinical Pharmacology Team. This agent was approved by the FDA for Rheumatoid Arthritis in November 2001. At MMD, he discovered a new class of orally active anti-TNFα molecules known as Carbocyclic Adenosine nucleosides, and one lead molecule, MDL201449A, was advanced to the IND stage in 1994.

Carl holds a BS in Microbiology from Colorado State University (1980), an MA in Immunology from The University of Colorado at Boulder (1984), and a PhD in Immunophysiology from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign (1989). Dr. Edwards performed Post-Doctoral research at the University of Indiana Medical School, Indianapolis, IN (1990). Dr. Edwards has been named as an inventor on 45 United States and International Patents, and he has authored 120 peer reviewed manuscripts and book chapters.

Dr. Edwards is joined by Scientific Advisor board member Charles A. Dinarello, MD.
Dr. Dinarello is Professor of Medicine at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, Division of Infectious Diseases. Until 1996, he was Professor of Medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine and a staff physician at the New England Medical Center Hospital in Boston. Dr. Dinarello received his medical degree from Yale University and clinical training at the Massachusetts General Hospital. From 1971-74, he was a clinical associate and from 1975-77, a senior investigator at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health in Bethesda. Dr. Dinarello serves on the editorial board of several scientific journals and has published over 500 original research articles and 250 reviews and book chapters on cytokines, particularly on Interleukin-1 and related cytokines. He has trained over 30 investigators, many of whom are now recognized experts in their fields. The Institute for Scientific Information listed Dr. Dinarello as the world’s 4th most-cited scientist during the 20 years 1983- 2002.

In 1998, Dr. Dinarello was elected to the United States National Academy of Sciences and is presently serving on the editorial board of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. He has served on the AIDS Program Advisory Council of the NIH and the Scientific Board of Advisors of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIH). He serves on the Board of Scientific Advisors of the Alliance for Lupus Research, the Board of Governors of the Weizmann Institute (Israel) and of the Board of Governors of the Ben Gurion University (Israel). He is the past-Vice President of the American Society of Clinical Investigation and was President of the International Cytokine Society (1995-1996). The recipient of several awards and prizes for his contributions to the field of cytokines, he received Germany’s prestigious Ernst Jung Prize in Medicine in 1993. In 1996, he received theLudwig Heilmeyer Gold Medal from the Heilmeyer Society of Internal Medicine for his contributions to progress in cytokines in medicine and in 2002, he received the International Chirone Prize from the Italian National Academy of Medicine.

In 2009, he was awarded the Crafoord Prize from Swedish Academy of Sciences for discovery of IL-1. He was also the 2009 winner of the Albany Prize in biomedical research for the establishment of the Cytokine Field. Dr. Dinarello has advised many firms including Amgen, Berlex, OrthoLogic Globeimmune, Genexion, Senesco, and Techne. He was recently named acting CEO of Omni Bio Pharmaceutical.