Fishing For Pharmaceuticals

The sea provides holidays for some and a workplace for others. For José María Fernández, it contributes to his work and play. Born in 1945 in Madrid, Spain, Fernández spent childhood holidays on the beaches of Galicia, north of Portugal. “For some reason, the sea has always attracted me,” he says. As a young man, he started scuba diving, but Fernández would eventually turn to even deeper oceanic explorations.

In 1986, he founded PharmaMar in his hometown. From the start, Fernández searched for ways to compete with large, established pharmaceutical companies. As he points out, PharmaMar “took a small, unexplored road.” That road led to the ocean, where he and his colleagues searched for compounds to fight cancer. “There are many good anti-tumor compounds from terrestrial origin, like Taxol,” he says, “but none were known from the seas.” Beyond looking for new compounds, PharmaMar scientists search for drugs that work in new ways. “We don’t want to develop me-too drugs,” Fernández clarifies. “We only develop molecules that are novel and have a new mechanism of action.”

One such compound, trabectedin, came from a sea squirt. PharmaMar incorporates this compound in a drug called Yondelis. As Fernández explains,“Yondelis’s novel mechanism of action is its binding to the DNA minor groove, interfering with cell division and the processes of gene transcription and DNA repair machinery in a very different way from other drugs on the market.” In 2007, the European Commission approved Yondelis for treating soft-tissue sarcoma, and it is now approved in 50 countries. “Yondelis is the first antitumor drug of marine origin to be marketed in the world,” Fernández adds. Recently, it was also approved in some countries as a treatment for ovarian cancer.

While PharmaMar pushes other ocean-based compounds through its pipeline, Fernández himself has become a leading biotechnology advocate across Spain. He serves as chairman of the Spanish Association of Bioenterprises (ASEBIO), a group whose main goal “is to build an industry capable of competing in Europe and the U.S.,” he explains. To reach that goal, the organization aims to build bridges between academics and industry through such initiatives as BioSpain, an annual biotechnology convention. “We can say that BioSpain is the perfect arena for technology transfer and to raise awareness regarding this sector,” he says.“By increasing confidence in the sector we can achieve a higher level of investment in biotechnology.”

As PharmaMar drives its wave of therapeutics further around the world, Fernández and his colleagues continue to mine the seas for tomorrow’s new drugs.