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Biotech Firms Forge On In Race To Unearth Profits From SOD

Author: RENEE TWOMBLY, p. 1, 8-9. Since 1965, entrepreneurs have struggled to find a way to capitalize on the enzyme's anti-inflammatory properties Immunologist Mark Saifer was sure, even before it had a name, that the peculiar emerald-green protein could reduce inflammation. But Saifer and the other scientists who have acted on that conviction to build up DDI Pharmaceuticals Inc. of Mountain View, Calif., couldn't say why the protein, derived from bovine testicles, worked, much less how it c

Written byRenee Twombly
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Author: RENEE TWOMBLY, p. 1, 8-9.


Since 1965, entrepreneurs have struggled to find a way to capitalize on the enzyme's anti-inflammatory properties

Immunologist Mark Saifer was sure, even before it had a name, that the peculiar emerald-green protein could reduce inflammation. But Saifer and the other scientists who have acted on that conviction to build up DDI Pharmaceuticals Inc. of Mountain View, Calif., couldn't say why the protein, derived from bovine testicles, worked, much less how it could be converted into a drug or what diseases it could treat.

"When we started we were really alone," says Saifer, who joined the company in 1970 and is now DDI's scientific director. "We were the only crazy believers in something that we didn't even know was an enzyme." AUTHOR: Robin Twombly, p.9 When a cell metabolizes oxygen to make energy, it forms oxygen molecules with an extra electron. That property allows these ...

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