Hypogen Information

Hypogen, Inc., is a biopharmaceutical company focused on the development of novel diagnostic tests and new therapeutics for essential hypertension. Hypertension is the world’s most prevalent disease, affecting more than 25 percent of the population, and continues to be a leading cause of morbidity and mortality. The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute reports that more than 30 percent of Americans with hypertension are unaware that they have high blood pressure, and less than 25 percent of those with hypertension actually have their condition controlled by prescription medications. As a result, it is estimated that more that 50 million people in the United States alone stand to benefit from improved diagnostic methods and more effective therapies. Hypogen’s mission is to meet this need. Hypogen has discovered and characterized a proprietary set of gene polymorphisms that it believes are largely responsible for the pathogenesis of essential hypertension and salt sensitivity. These single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), by themselves or via an interaction with genes controlling the renin-angiotensin system, have a strong positive association with essential hypertension across racial and ethnic subpopulations, including Ghanaians, Caucasian Americans, Japanese, and Italians. Furthermore, Hypogen has successfully isolated and immortalized human cells expressing the GRK4 gene variants, as well as expressed the genes both in vitro (i.e., in transfected cells) and in vivo (creating the first transgenic hypertensive mouse model expressing specific genes that cause these mice to become either hypertensive or salt sensitive). These novel drug discovery tools promise to eliminate two of the primary bottlenecks in the search for new antihypertensive drugs. Armed with the knowledge of the specific mechanisms responsible for the disease, Hypogen’s first objective is to provide the clinical and research communities with a more accurate method for diagnosing essential hypertension. As currently practiced, diagnosis is often difficult, particularly for early-stage and borderline essential hypertension, due to the multifactorial and polygenic nature of the disease. To overcome this problem, Hypogen has developed a proprietary diagnostic test that provides over 70 percent prediction of the hypertensive phenotype, a rate significantly better than competing tests. Hypogen’s second objective is to use its unique drug discovery tools to identify novel drug targets to treat the underlying cause of hypertension without the side effects associated with existing therapies. The Company’s first discovery is an antisense technology that has the possibility of becoming an antihypertensive medication in humans. Early research has demonstrated that this target compound prevents the onset of high blood pressure in spontaneously hypertensive rats, and corrects the sodium transport defect found in human cells. The Company also plans to construct a high-throughput screening laboratory to expedite the search for other potential antihypertensive drugs that target its proprietary SNPs. Hypogen was co-founded by Dr. Robin Felder and Dr. Pedro Jose in 2002 and is headquartered in Charlottesville, VA, adjacent to the University of Virginia Medical Center. Research and development activities are conducted in Charlottesville, VA, and in Washington, DC, at the Georgetown University Medical Center. As a result, the Company is strategically located to take advantage of the knowledge and resources at both the University of Virginia and Georgetown University, and to benefit from the concentration of public and private biotechnology resources in the greater Washington, DC, metropolitan area.