Early to mid 2009 looks like a good year for Ann Arbor's Phrixus Pharmaceuticals. That's when the 2.5-year-old start-up expects to hire up to 100 people for the clinical trail stage of its heart-failure-fighting drug.

The University of Michigan spin-off is developing a compound that acts as a biological sealant. That means it helps prevent heart failure and improves cardiac function.

That improved cardiac function is working best in four different models of heart failure, such as heart failure associated with muscular dystrophy, chronic treatment of heart failure and acute heart failure.

The work on the acute heart failure is farthest along in development. Commercialization of the product is set for 2013. It's so far down the line because cardiac drugs require more clinical trails before they can be approved.

Source: Bruce Markham, vice president of research and chief scientific officer for Phrixus Pharmaceuticals
Writer: Jon Zemke