Finding redemption

North Carolina's tobacco culture has always been rich with ironies. Tobacco helped build many of our hospitals, where thousands of people have been treated for smoking-related illnesses. It helped build our universities, where doctors and many others have researched the dangers of smoking.

But the biggest irony of all may be that a spinoff of the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., Don deBethizy's Targacept, is leading the way in developing drugs to treat diseases of the central nervous system -- and its work is rooted in research on nicotine that began almost 30 years ago at RJR.

Targacept is a legacy that Richard Joshua Reynolds could not have imagined, anymore than he could have forseen the undeniable connection between cigarettes and cancer that was documented decades after his death.

Led by a man who has connections to tobacco like many of the rest of us, the biotech company may one day provide some level of redemption for the damage cigarettes have wrought on society.

We say that not to preach, but just to state a truth. For years this newspaper, just like virtually every other institution in our community, supported the tobacco industry and greatly benefitted from it. The industry was beyond an accepted way of life. It was our bedrock, and we all thrived on it. Reynolds American is still an important employer here. But our economy is transforming. As that happens, we can draw comfort from the fact that there's a straight line between the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. and Targacept, a foundation of the transforming economy. Based in Winston-Salem's Piedmont Triad Research Park, in the heart of the former tobacco district, the company is celebrating its 10th birthday.

"Even when I came here [in 1985], the tobacco-and-health issue was alive and well, but people were still very proud of tobacco," deBethizy told the Journal. "It was still very much of a way of life.

That changed. The entire social view of tobacco changed. When you have your flagship demonized like that, it is redemptive to have something you've invested in transform into something that others can see the value in."

Gayle Anderson of the Greater Winston-Salem Chamber of Commerce, a former mid-level manager at RJR, said that many people don't realize that Reynolds nurtured Targacept "for a decade within its organization, but made the business decision to stick to its core competencies and help Targacept do the same."

A story last week by the Journal's Richard Craver laid out that connection well. Reynolds started the research that would lead to Targacept in 1982 as it studied the effects of nicotine on the body. When deBethizy joined the company, he was led to do so in part by smokers in his family. "I realized they weren't going to quit, so I went to Reynolds to try to develop safer cigarettes," he said. He became the vice president of product evaluation, concentrating on reduced-risk products, such as the Eclipse non-burning cigarette.

Targecept was spun out from RJR in 2000. Many experts, including deBethizy, were publicly acknowledging the addictive nature of nicotine. The new company's independence probably allowed it to survive its startup stage. That stage is volatile for any drug-research company. But it would have been especially so for Targacept if it had still been a subsidiary of a company with a reputation for being less than truthful about disclosing the dangers of cigarettes.

RJR officials said recently that they took the independence factor into consideration in spinning off Targacept, and are pleased with its success. The company has nailed down multi-million research deals with leading drug companies. It and Anthony Atala's Wake Forest University Institute of Regenerative Medicine are the bedrocks of the research park, and they're attracting more good research organizations to the park and area. The northern expansion of the park will be a driver in downtown revitalization.

And the park is crucial for the continued success of North Carolina's blossoming biotech industry -- a fact that state and local leaders shouldn't forget at budget time. The work being done in the park makes headlines nationwide. At Targacept, researchers are developing drugs that mimic nicotine's effect on receptors in the nervous system. The drugs will be used to treat Alzheimer's, chronic depression, adult attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, cognitive dysfunction in schizophrenia and inflammatory disorders.

One inspiration for deBethizy is his mother, Jean, who is 78. She recently began showing signs of confusion. That's a major concern for her and her loved ones because her brothers died of Alzheimer's. She smoked for 50 years. One of her excuses for continuing was research that showed diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's seemed to affect smokers measurably less than nonsmokers. DeBethizy said he told his mother that the risk of emphysema and lung cancer was greater than any protection she might be getting.

Targacept is a symbol for a community that's building a new economy, one independent of tobacco but still rooted in its heritage. There's hope that Targacept's cutting-edge work that's rooted in research on nicotine, the substance that has kept many people hooked on cigarettes until they got sick and died, might one day play a role in healing. We think Mr. Reynolds would have approved.