Purnanand D. Sarma, Ph.D., (formerly known as Sarma Duddu) serves as President and Chief Executive Officer at TARIS Biomedical. TARIS sold its lead program, LiRIS®, to Allergan for $588M. Dr. Sarma came to TARIS with more than 15 years of pharmaceutical experience and has been involved in all aspects of the drug delivery business. Before that, he held the position of General Manager and Vice President of Worldwide Drug Delivery Technologies of CIMA LABS, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Cephalon, Inc (NASDAQ:CEPH). Prior to Cephalon, Dr. Sarma served as Vice President of Pharmaceutical Development at Nektar Therapeutics (NASDAQ:NKTR) (formerly Inhale Therapeutic Systems), a leading drug delivery company based in San Carlos, CA. Prior to Nektar, he worked at SmithKline Beecham Pharmaceuticals, where he focused in the areas of pharmaceutical technology, formulation sciences and product development. Dr. Sarma earned a Ph.D. in Pharmaceutics from the University of Minnesota and a Bachelors degree in Pharmacy from Andhra University in Waltair, India.

What motivated you to join Taris as it CEO?

I am drawn towards challenges where a technology needs to be converted to a product.  While this paradigm may appear simple on the surface, it is an extremely complex equation to solve as one needs to balance creating products in a highly regulated sector, while navigating complex economic and reimbursement challenges.  However, it is also an opportunity for ground-breaking innovation that can benefit millions of patients at a time.  TARIS is one such approach where we have the potential to fundamentally change how urological diseases are treated. TARIS, though I knew would be challenging, was hard for me to resist.

Could you tell us a little about TARIS ?

TARIS is based on a highly disruptive technology, originally invented by two MIT stalwarts known for their serial entrepreneurship,  Dr. Robert Langer and Dr. Michael Cima. Urinary bladder is very dynamic (as it empties every 2-3 hrs) and very sensitive.  Developing a device that can be retained in the bladder for a long time, well tolerated by the patients, and easily deployed and retrieved is not an easy task.  Technology  developed by Langer and Cima is a brilliantly simple approach which leverages well known principles of super-elastic alloys and osmotic drug delivery.   The drug eluting small device can be easily placed and retrieved from the urinary bladder in a simple office visit

This device can release various medications, depending on the target disease, for periods of days to months.  My job is to figure out which diseases with significant unmet need can this technology address.

Why did you decide to focus on Bladder diseases ?

While we have been able to target various organs, such as the lungs, liver and even bone, delivering drugs to the bladder has been a holy grail.  As a result, traditional approaches for treating bladder diseases use systemic (oral or injectable) approaches, which deliver only a small fraction of dose to the bladder and, as a collateral damage, result in significant systemic side effects in other off-target organs.  In severe cases, the doctors squirt a solution of drug directly into the bladder, which is typically eliminated in a 1-2 hours.   For the first time ever, our technology has the potential to target diseases of the bladder locally and continuously, potentially allowing much higher efficacy with significantly lower side effects.  Diseases of the bladder are common among the elderly.  As the size of the elderly population in increasing (e.g. in the US), there is an urgent need to develop effective therapies to combat these diseases.  We believe TARIS is leading the charge.

What is the secret to the success of LIRIS?

The secret of LiRIS success is really the perseverance of the TARIS team and investors.  The disease we are hoping to address with LiRIS is an extremely debilitating condition known as Interstitial Cystitis, characterized by severe pain as bladder fills and stretches.  Since this is an emerging disease, spending significant time and money (at risk!) to understand the patients and the disease presentation in various clinical studies we conducted, while delivering the right amount/profile of drug, were both very critical for this program.

How has the sale of LIRIS to Allergen impacted TARIS?

This transaction has demonstrate the potential value of the approach, and allows us to now maximize the platform value by focusing on additional indications, such as bladder cancer, where we think we can make a big difference.  We hope to make further disclosures on our pipeline in the very near future.

You have had a very successful career. What do you look forward to in the future?

Tackling tough-to-treat diseases is what gets me going.  I had the privilege of contributing to the development of products, leveraging both technology and medicine, for treating some tough indications such as cystic fibrosis, pain and cancer.  We are entering into an amazing era of technology revolution, especially in the healthcare sector, both in diagnosis and in treatment.  I look forward integrating such advances into treatment paradigm to the best of my ability.  I also enjoy helping companies/individuals, especially in health science sector, and I expect to continue spending a portion of my free time doing that.

Any advice for entrepreneurs who may be starting up in the  Biomedical space?

It is a tough, but highly rewarding journey.  It is extremely likely that your first venture may NOT be the venture that will succeed.  So, be prepared for a longer haul.  For those who are balancing family life at the same time, it is critical to think through this with your significant other.  Furthermore, we don't fully understand the biology of human body. Be brutally honest and objective with the data (body's feedback).  The key phrase to success is "Kill Cheap, and Kill Fast".  If you can't kill an idea, it is destined to be good.

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