Originally doing business as MelaRx and then as OncoRx, management licensed three inventions related to gene therapy for melanoma from Yale University. In 1995, (then) OncoRx licensed exclusive marketing rights in the North American oncology market to Response Biomedical's (point-of-care diagnostics). Vion Pharmaceuticals, Inc. had been organized around commercialization those several discoveries: Two anticancer agents, Onrigin (laromustine), formerly cloretazine (VNP40101M), and Triapine, a ribunucloetide reductase inhibitor similar to hydroxyurea, were in human clinical trials. A novel alkylating agent, Onrigin was evaluated in a Phase 2 trial in elderly de novo poor-risk acute myeloid leukemia (AML). In addition, several trials of Onrigin were conducted in elderly patients with AML and myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) in combination with cytarabine, and in patients with brain tumors in combination with temozolomide. The firm made successful public offering in 1998. After Onrigin was rejected by the Food and Drug Administration for an AML indication in 2009 due to an unfavorable risk-benefit profile, the company declared bankruptcy in December 2009.
