Prolacta Starts Drug Development
/Since its founding in 1999, Duarte-based Prolacta Bioscience Inc. has been chiefly focused on supplying human breast milk-based nutritional products for premature and critically ill infants to hospitals and other health care providers.
The business has had its share of ups and downs over the years, including weathering a contamination scare that rocked the industry a decade ago. But now, Prolacta has unveiled a new business line: drug development. The company has spent the past several years researching and developing what it claims is the first drug made from human milk. The drug aims to boost immunity in patients who have undergone stem cell transplants to combat blood cancers.
Last month, Prolacta announced that researchers at nearby City of Hope – also based in Duarte – had dosed the first patient with the drug to initiate a Phase 2a clinical trial. It’s a major step in what will likely be a years-long process costing well over $100 million to bring the drug to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for approval and eventually to market.