GTx, Inc. was a pharmaceutical company working on drugs in the selective estrogen receptor modulator (SERM) and selective androgen receptor modulator (SARM) classes. Its drugs in development included enobosarm (ostarine) and GTx-758.
The company was founded in Memphis in 1997 by Mitch Steiner and Marc S. Hanover. The company was originally called Genotherapeutics, changed its name to GTx, Inc. in 2001, and reincorporated in Delaware in 2003.[1] The company licensed toremifene from Orion Corporation, and licensed andarine, enobosarm and prostarine from the University of Tennessee Research Foundation; the SARM compounds from Tennessee had been invented by Duane D Miller and James T Dalton, who later joined the company and served as Chief Scientific Officer.[1] The company held its IPO in February 2004.[2][3]
In 2006 GTx signed a partnership with Ipsen to develop toremifene, a selective estrogen receptor modulator to prevent prostate cancer and to prevent bone loss in men with prostate cancer; the FDA rejected the application to market the drug for this use in 2009, and Ipsen terminated the arrangement in 2011.