Long­time biotech ex­ec David de Graaf has the cash he needs to set up the pre­clin­i­cal foun­da­tion for his coen­zyme A me­tab­o­lism com­pa­ny Comet. A few high-pro­file in­vestors joined the ven­ture syn­di­cate to sup­ply Comet with $28.5 mil­lion in launch mon­ey — enough to get it two years in­to the plat­form-build­ing game, with­in knock­ing dis­tance of the clin­ic.

Canaan jumped in along­side ex­ist­ing in­vestor Sofinno­va Part­ners to co-lead the round, with par­tic­i­pa­tion by ex­ist­ing in­vestor INKEF Cap­i­tal and new in­vestor BioIn­no­va­tion Cap­i­tal.

Pe­ter Van Vlas­se­laer As­ceneu­ron

By next year Comet will have 3 or 4 com­pounds un­der the mi­cro­scope, with plans to take 1 of those in­to an IND sub­mis­sion for 2021, clos­ing in on the clin­ic. In the mean­time, says the Syn­tim­mune vet, they’ll be look­ing at part­ner­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties to help beef up their bank ac­count and grow the fledg­ling pipeline.

Dis­cov­ered 70 years ago, every cell re­quires coen­zyme A to break down fats and sug­ars to cre­ate en­er­gy. And de­fects in the path­way are linked to a pletho­ra of dis­eases, with ap­pli­ca­tions in neu­rol­o­gy, meta­bol­ic dis­eases and can­cer.

Art Taveras LinkedIn

Comet has a team of 8 in place in their new Kendall Square lab, with plans to grow to 20 by the end of next year, tap­ping in on lo­cal tal­ent as they con­cen­trate their forces on the metabo­lites linked to coen­zyme A. “The metabo­lites,” says de Graaf, “are in­cred­i­bly im­por­tant.”

“The com­pa­ny is op­er­at­ing in a vir­tu­al white space, yet has built a broad patent port­fo­lio around its core tech­nol­o­gy,” says chair­man Pe­ter Van Vlas­se­laer, who has a string of star­tups to his cred­it, in­clud­ing Ar­mo. “We see ex­cit­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties in the ar­eas of im­muno-me­tab­o­lism and neu­ro-me­tab­o­lism.”

The team in­cludes chief sci­en­tif­ic of­fi­cer Art Taveras and co-founder and chief tech­nol­o­gy of­fi­cer Enej Kuscer, who’s worked in this field for years.

Enej Kuscer LinkedIn

There’s at least one oth­er coen­zyme A com­pa­ny out there, un­der the wing of Bridge­Bio in San Fran­cis­co. But de Graaf ap­pears less in­ter­est­ed in the rare dis­ease ap­proach to the field than the broad­er plat­form that can be built around this tar­get. And that leaves plen­ty of tar­gets of op­por­tu­ni­ty.

Biohaven is at risk of making a habit of disappointing its investors. 

Late Friday the biotech $BHVN reported that the FDA had rejected its application for riluzole, an old drug that they had made over into a sublingual formulation that dissolves under the tongue. According to Biohaven, the FDA had a problem with the active ingredient used in a bioequivalence study back in 2017, which they got from the Canadian drugmaker Apotex.

Let the long battle for biosimilars in the cancer space begin.

Amgen has launched its Avastin and Herceptin copycats — licensed from the predecessors of Allergan — almost two years after the FDA had stamped its approval on Mvasi (bevacizumab-awwb) and three months after the Kanjinti OK (trastuzumab-anns). While the biotech had been fielding biosimilars in Europe, this marks their first foray in the US — and the first oncology biosimilars in the country.

→ On the same day it announced a $17.5 million Series C, life sciences and health data company Seer unveiled that it had lured former FDA commissioner and ex-CMS administrator Mark McClellan on to its board. “Mark’s deep understanding of the health care ecosystem and visionary insights on policy reform will be crucial in informing our thinking as we work to bring our liquid biopsy and life sciences products to market,” said Seer chief and founder Omid Farokhzad in a statement.

Gilead CEO Daniel O’Day’s new task hunting up a CSO for the company isn’t stopping the industry’s dominant antiviral player from doing pipeline deals.

The big biotech today snapped up 3 preclinical antiviral programs from pharma giant Novartis, with drugs promising to treat human rhinovirus, influenza and herpes viruses. We don’t know what the upfront is, but the back end has $291 million in milestones baked in.