Sierra Nueropharmaceuticals, Inc., founded in 2005 and located at the Colorado Science + Technology Park at Fitzsimons in Aurora, Colorado, was named one of BusinessWeek magazine’s Most Successful Startups of 2008. The article noted Sierra Neuro’s success in capturing total venture capital investment of $21.5M and $230,000 in grants over the last year. Sierra Neuro works to reformulate existing off-patent oral drugs for serious neurological conditions to allow for administration directly into the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) around the brain. The hope is that this approach will allow for administration of a much lower overall dose, thus reducing side effects and toxicities, while still delivering therapeutic levels of the drug to the affected neurons. The company’s product candidates include felbamate for epilepsy and clozapine for schizophrenia.
In judging the national array of startups, the BusinessWeek team relied on the recently released MoneyTree Report from The National Venture Capital Association and PricewaterhouseCoopers. The annual document tracks the money invested by the venture capital industry in startup firms. The article noted that despite the economic downturn, 2008 witnessed over $7 billion in investment in seed and early stage companies, the largest amount since the internet bubble of 2001.
