Months af­ter kick­ing off Phase Ib tri­als, a group of sea­soned can­cer drug de­vel­op­ers out of the Bay Area have filed for an $86 mil­lion IPO in an­tic­i­pa­tion of a pre­lim­i­nary look on whether their glu­co­cor­ti­coid re­cep­tor an­tag­o­nist works against prostate can­cer and oth­er sol­id tu­mors.

Charles Sawyers

As ORIC Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals’ name — which is ac­tu­al­ly an acronym — sug­gests, the com­pa­ny wants to “over­come re­sis­tance in can­cer.”

They fur­ther break it down in the S-1:

Our re­sis­tance plat­form is fo­cused on three ar­eas: (1) in­nate re­sis­tance, which de­rives from an un­ad­dressed onco­genic dri­ver that pro­motes tu­mori­ge­n­e­sis; (2) ac­quired re­sis­tance, the re­sult of an in­duced or en­riched onco­genic dri­ver that aris­es in re­sponse to treat­ment; and (3) by­pass re­sis­tance, the ac­ti­va­tion of a com­pen­sato­ry sig­nal­ing path­way in re­sponse to treat­ment.

Rich Hey­man

Charles Sawyers and Rich Hey­man, two of the co-founders of ORIC, were be­hind some of these ex­ist­ing treat­ments, in­clud­ing Xtan­di (which Sawyers li­censed to Medi­va­tion be­fore it was bought by Pfiz­er) and Er­lea­da (which Hey­man steered at Aragon un­til J&J snapped it up). Af­ter Sawyers’ lab at Memo­r­i­al Sloan Ket­ter­ing showed that tu­mor cells switch to glu­co­cor­ti­coid re­cep­tor (GR) sig­nal­ing to by­pass an­ti-an­dro­gen ther­a­py, they be­gan putting the the­o­ry to the test at ORIC.

The re­sult­ing small mol­e­cule drug, ORIC-101, is in two Phase Ib stud­ies — one in com­bi­na­tion with Xtan­di in prostate can­cer and an­oth­er paired with chemother­a­py in ad­vanced or metasta­t­ic sol­id tu­mors. If every­thing works well, a dose ex­pan­sion por­tion will be ap­pend­ed.

As for in­nate re­sis­tance, the team has ze­roed in on CD73, which they call “a key node in the adeno­sine path­way be­lieved to play a cen­tral role in re­sis­tance to chemother­a­py- and im­munother­a­py-based treat­ment reg­i­mens.” An IND for ORIC-533 is planned for next year, while oth­er pre­clin­i­cal pro­grams are in lead iden­ti­fi­ca­tion and un­der­go­ing in vit­ro stud­ies.

Ja­cob Chacko

Ja­cob Chacko leads the biotech as CEO, flanked by CMO Pratik Mul­tani, a col­league from his Igny­ta days. They took home com­pen­sa­tion pack­ages worth $672,129 and $535,156, re­spec­tive­ly, last year, while CFO Do­minic Piscitel­li was re­ward­ed $1,236,705.

Piscitel­li joined last year as ORIC was com­plet­ing a com­plete over­haul of the C-suite, bring­ing in Genen­tech vet Lori Fried­man as CSO and woo­ing CBO Matthew Panuwat from Prothena.

Lori Fried­man

The in­vestors who par­tic­i­pat­ed in both rounds of its in­sti­tu­tion­al fi­nanc­ing — The Col­umn Group (22.39%), Top­spin Fund (15.56%), Or­biMed (11.67%) and EcoR1 Cap­i­tal (5.83%) — re­main the biggest share­hold­ers.

Join­ing ORIC in the Nas­daq queue is NLS Phar­ma­ceu­tics, a Swiss biotech de­vel­op­ing con­trolled re­lease ver­sions of an old ap­petite sup­pres­sant called mazin­dol for rare dis­eases of the cen­tral ner­vous sys­tem. They are seek­ing $40 mil­lion.

The European Medicines Agency’s Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) recommended nine drugs for approval this week while also giving thumbs up for six expanded indications, including Novo Nordisk’s approved obesity medication Wegovy for younger people. Wegovy is already approved as an obesity treatment in the EU for adults, and the new indication would allow prescriptions for adolescents aged 12 and older.

The German life science group Sartorius will be picking up French contract manufacturer Polyplus for the price of €2.4 billion, or $2.6 billion.

On Friday, Sartorius announced the acquisition through its French subgroup, Sartorius Stedim Biotech, which will be acquiring Polyplus from private investors ARCHIMED and WP GG Holdings IV. Polyplus has 270 employees and produces materials and components that go into making viral vectors that are used in cell and gene therapies. This includes DNA/RNA reagents as well as plasmid DNA. Polyplus has locations in France, Belgium, China and the US.

RNA biotech GreenLight Biosciences has been handed an offer for potential acquisition.

GreenLight said in a release that it has received a non-binding “indication of interest” from Fall Line Endurance Fund to acquire GreenLight’s capital stock for $0.60 per share in cash. The release said any potential agreement between the two parties would depend on certain conditions.

Through a special committee, the biotech will evaluate the offer but added there’s no certainty a deal will go forward. GreenLight will also not make any more announcements until a deal comes through or “otherwise determines” a statement is necessary.

A public T cell biotech’s chief executive has decided to leave the company.

TScan Therapeutics said Friday morning that CEO David Southwell stepped down earlier this week, leaving both his chief executive and board member roles. Filling in is Gavin MacBeath, the company’s CSO and COO. He became the acting CEO on Tuesday, and will continue to remain CSO and COO, TScan’s announcement read.