• Marquette and the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee have completed a license agreement with Promentis Pharmaceuticals Inc. to develop and commercialize chemical compounds for treating schizophrenia and other central nervous system disorders.
• Promentis is the first pharmaceutical startup company to come out of Marquette.
• The Milwaukee-based company was founded by two Marquette professors.

Marquette University and the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee have struck a license agreement with a locally based startup company seeking to develop and commercialize chemical compounds for treating schizophrenia and other central nervous system disorders.

Promentis Pharmaceuticals Inc. was founded in 2007 by David Baker and John Mantsch, assistant and associate professors of biomedical sciences, respectively. It is the first pharmaceutical startup company to come out of Marquette, said William Wiener, vice provost for research and dean of Marquette's graduate school.

Baker and James Cook, professor of chemistry at UW-Milwaukee, will head research teams working toward new treatments of the disorders, Wiener said.

"This is a true partnership between Marquette and UWM," Wiener said. "We hope this will lead to a beneficial outcome for people who suffer from schizophrenia, and possibly other illnesses. This is a perfect example of how our faculty and the sciences are able to make a contribution to society."

Through research over the past decade, Baker has discovered a novel mechanism by which the chemical neurotransmitter in the brain, glutamate, is regulated, said William Cullinan, dean of the College of Health Sciences, via e-mail. Baker's approach may effectively target two classes of symptoms impacting those with schizophrenia who currently have no effective treatments.

Schizophrenia is a cognitive disability that can cause delusions, hallucinations and disorganized thought processes, Wiener said.

Approximately one percent of adults 18 and older suffer from the illness — about 51 million people worldwide, according to the National Institute of Mental Health.

Baker has enlisted the help of Cook, who is devising a strategy to efficiently deliver compounds to the brain so they can act on Baker's mechanism, Cullinan said.

Cook's 30 years of research has resulted in multiple patents, including a license of his anti-anxiety compound by pharmaceutical company Bristol-Myers Squibb in 2006, according to the UWM Web site.

Besides its potential medical achievements, the project could have positive economic results, said Brian Thompson, president of the UWM Research Foundation.

"It allows our research to impact the local economy," Thompson said.

The two universities have invested in patent applications for the research, Wiener said. The project will require additional funding, and the Golden Angels Network, a Marquette business group, has expressed strong interest in supporting the venture, he said.

The two research teams are still in a collaborative, trial-and-error process, said Promentis CEO Daniel Lawton.

Promentis' role is to gather resources and to design a development plan with an eye toward obtaining drug approval and federal consent for human trials. Eventually, the company could distribute the drug or license it to another pharmaceutical company, Lawton said.

Lawton recently received a letter from someone with a family member suffering from schizophrenia. The person expressed encouragement and urged Promentis to work quickly to find treatment.

"This is a privilege and a responsibility to make it work," Lawton said. "What gets us up in the morning is the possibility of developing treatment for the symptoms of schizophrenia."

Yet even if the project falls short of its ultimate goal, it will still pay dividends in the future, Baker said via e-mail.

"Even if this program does not lead directly to a treatment, it may facilitate the efforts of others," he said. "These efforts may serve as a model for future collaborations and efforts to translate findings from the lab to the marketplace amongst scientists in southeastern Wisconsin.

"The benefit would be a better use of local, state and federal resources in a way that creates value, potentially in the form of well-paying jobs, for Wisconsin."