Phrixus Pharmaceuticals Inc.

Entrepreneurs Thomas Collet and Bruce Markham founded Phrixus in 2006 to validate the potential of Carmeseal (P188) to treat heart failure. The Phrixus team selected P188 not only for the work of Professor Joseph Metzger Ph.D. at the University of Michigan, but also for the investment Burroughs Wellcome and other companies had made in P188.

Professor Metzger, now chair of Integrative Biology and Physiology at the University of Minnesota, has conducted experiments that showed P188 could boost the blood pumping capacity of damaged hearts by binding to the damaged regions of cell membrane.