Linaprazan didn’t make much of a mark at As­traZeneca. De­spite show­ing promise in ear­ly-stage stud­ies, the potas­si­um com­pet­i­tive acid block­er, or PCA-B, failed to beat Nex­i­um, the phar­ma gi­ant’s block­buster pro­ton pump in­hibitor in treat­ing acid re­flux. The drug was then un­cer­e­mo­ni­ous­ly purged from the pipeline.

Kjell An­der­s­son

As the pre­clin­i­cal project leader in Möl­ndal, Swe­den, Kjell An­der­s­son wit­nessed the rise and fall of linaprazan. Hav­ing helped de­vel­op Nex­i­um, he al­so knew that about 40% of pa­tients still suf­fer from symp­toms, in­clud­ing heart­burn and chest pain, even if they’re on treat­ment. So to­geth­er with col­leagues Mikael Dahlström and Pe­ter Unge, he pur­chased rights to pro­drugs of linaprazan and launched his own start­up.

Cin­clus Phar­ma is now 6 years old and has just land­ed $26 mil­lion (SEK 250 mil­lion) to fund a Phase II tri­al of its lead drug, X842.

The rea­son why linaprazan didn’t work was that it was elim­i­nat­ed too quick­ly from the body, so goes the com­pa­ny’s the­o­ry, and the du­ra­tion of acid block­ing was thus too short. They point to Take­da’s vono­prazan, a fel­low PAC-B drug, and its ap­proval in Japan to high­light the po­ten­tial of the ap­proach.

Pe­ter Unge

Out­side of Japan, vono­prazan is now in the hands of Phath­om Phar­ma, the Take­da/Fra­zier spin­out ded­i­cat­ed to GI dis­eases.

With the help of Fourth Swedish Na­tion­al Pen­sion Fund as well as ex­ist­ing share­hold­ers in­clud­ing Bengt Ju­lan­der, Jonas Sjö­gren and Re­ci­pharm Ven­ture Fund, Cin­clus ex­pects to start a Phase II in gas­troe­sophageal re­flux dis­ease (GERD) lat­er this year.

“The in­tro­duc­tion of Losec and oth­er pro­ton pump in­hibitors in the 1980s and the 1990s was a ma­jor step for­ward in the treat­ment of GERD,” CEO An­der­s­son said in a state­ment, re­fer­ring to an­oth­er drug he was in­volved in steer­ing. “How­ev­er, there is po­ten­tial to help sig­nif­i­cant­ly more pa­tients to a bet­ter life by de­vel­op­ing even more ef­fi­cient drugs.”

As­traZeneca, mean­while, has moved on from the lega­cy field, sell­ing Losec and Nex­i­um off to a pair of Ger­man drug­mak­ers.

The average level of investment required for a biotech start-up to succeed is increasing every year, elevating the pressure even further on venture capital to make smart financial investments. Financial investment alone, however, does not always guarantee that exciting innovations can be transformed into real businesses that make a meaningful difference to patients.

Beyond just capital

At Astellas Venture Management (AVM) – a wholly-owned venture capital organization within Astellas, headquartered in the San Francisco Bay Area – capital is just one of the ingredients we offer to add value to our biotechnology investments and partnerships. We generally take a strategic investor approach for companies in our invested portfolio, providing access to expertise, technology and/or resources in addition to the injection of finance. An equity investment from AVM can include access to Astellas’ research and development (R&D) capabilities and expertise, and a global network of partner academic institutions and biotechnology companies, to help advance and accelerate the start-up’s innovation.

Unum $UMRX is working its way through a survival plan of sorts.

After getting hit with a trio of FDA holds in its brief public history and triggering its second pivot to a new lead drug program while laying off 60% of the staff, the troubled penny stock biotech Unum Therapeutics has hatched new plans to secure financial backing while lining up a go-forward strategy for the company.

First, Lincoln Park Capital Fund has agreed to buy up to $25 million of the long-suffering stock, as Unum directs. And the executive team — led by CEO Chuck Wilson — has put everything on the table for consideration: a sale, acquisition, merger, licensing deal, you name it. The ACTR707 program, meanwhile, is being formally wrapped up — their second failed lead program.