Biopharmaceutical developer Fortress Biotech has set up a new subsidiary to develop a treatment for amyloidosis licensed from Columbia University.

Columbia University today licensed a therapeutic treatment that could tackle the rare organ disease amyloid light chain (AL) amyloidosis to US-based biopharmaceutical developer Fortress Biotech.

The licence for Columbia’s CAEL-101 antibody has been allocated to Caelum Biosciences, a newly created subsidiary of Fortress to commercialise the therapy.

Fortress has appointed Michael Spector, founder of US-based drug developer North Creek Pharmaceuticals, to run Caelum as chief executive.

AL amyloidosis is a potentially fatal disorder in which malformed proteins produced by bone…