EIP Phar­ma flies in­to a high-risk PhI­Ib Alzheimer’s study fu­eled with $20.5M from bil­lion­aire Len Blavat­nik’s Ac­cess In­dus­tries

John Alam

Un­de­terred by the string of fail­ures plagu­ing Alzheimer’s drug de­vel­op­ment, a young start­up based in Cam­bridge, MA has tapped an un­con­ven­tion­al source for $20.5 mil­lion to ad­vance a re­pur­posed drug in the clin­ic.

The new funds — com­ing from bil­lion­aire Len Blavat­nik’s Ac­cess In­dus­tries — will pow­er EIP Phar­ma’s Phase IIb study of ne­flamapi­mod, a p38 ki­nase in­hibitor in-li­censed from Ver­tex Phar­ma. Named RE­VERSE-SD, the high-risk tri­al will mea­sure im­prove­ment in episod­ic mem­o­ry as a pri­ma­ry end­point and have sev­er­al sec­ondary end­points in­clud­ing Clin­i­cal De­men­tia Rat­ing Scale Sum-of-Box­es, Wech­sler Mem­o­ry Scale, and spinal flu­id bio­mark­ers of dis­ease pro­gres­sion.

The fo­cus here is on cog­ni­tion — a gold stan­dard cheered on by the FDA in a set of guid­ance doc­u­ments re­leased in Feb­ru­ary. They came just in time for EIP Phar­ma, which launched RE­VERSE-SD in March.

“That’s the first time they’ve said that be­cause they rec­og­nize that it’s re­al­ly hard in the ear­ly stages of Alzheimer’s and in mild Alzheimer’s dis­ease to show an ef­fect on, for ex­am­ple, rates of go­ing in­to a nurs­ing home, be­cause that hap­pens lat­er on,” CEO John Alam tells me. “What mat­ters to pa­tients — when they first get di­ag­nosed — is the mem­o­ry func­tion.”

By tar­get­ing dys­func­tion­al neu­rons and the synaps­es that con­nect them, Alam be­lieves, their drug can di­rect­ly ad­dress mem­o­ry deficits. As such, their study will be “re­al­ly well aligned with the new FDA guid­ance doc­u­ment in terms of how we de­fine ear­ly Alzheimer’s dis­ease and how we’re mea­sur­ing drug ef­fect,” says Alam, a for­mer Ver­tex CMO who head­ed Sanofi’s ag­ing unit be­fore mov­ing on to start EIP Phar­ma.

Len Blavat­nik

By the time EIP was found­ed in 2014, Ver­tex was al­ready well in­to mid-stage de­vel­op­ment with ne­flamapi­mod, al­beit in non-CNS dis­or­ders. Hav­ing in­her­it­ed full sets of an­i­mal test­ing, Phase I and Phase II clin­i­cal da­ta — along­side an es­tab­lished man­u­fac­tur­ing process — the biotech went straight to Phase IIa, which yield­ed pos­i­tive re­sults ear­li­er this year.

That’s ad­vanced com­pared to the new­com­ers work­ing on nov­el path­ways in Alzheimer’s — a high pro­file start­up, De­nali Ther­a­peu­tics, has on­ly re­cent­ly be­gan Phase I test­ing; Rodin Ther­a­peu­tics, which is work­ing on synap­tic re­silience, has yet to en­ter the clin­ic — and Alam was quick to point it out.

“The things that are in Phase III to­day, the idea for them and con­cep­tion work­ing on them start­ed 10 or more years ago,” he says. “What we’re work­ing on, and the mech­a­nism we’re work­ing on, is tru­ly the state of the art sci­ence of our un­der­stand­ing of [how] ac­tu­al­ly mem­o­ry deficits form.”

Ground­work laid by Ver­tex had al­so al­lowed EIP Phar­ma to be cap­i­tal ef­fi­cient pri­or to this point, en­list­ing a small group of 10 in­di­vid­ual in­vestors to back their ear­li­er study. And it’s that pri­vate net­work that con­nect­ed Alam’s team to Ac­cess In­dus­tries, the first in­sti­tu­tion­al backer.

While Ac­cess had not been known for mak­ing a lot of life sci­ence in­vest­ments, Blavat­nik, the ec­cen­tric bil­lion­aire founder of Ac­cess, had backed biotechs through Clal Bio­sciences and dished out bio­med­ical sci­ence grants at top in­sti­tu­tions around the world. He was, how­ev­er, not di­rect­ly in­volved in the round.

Ac­cess could not be reached for com­ment. Ac­cord­ing to Alam, the two par­ties bond­ed over a vi­sion for the long term — a work­ing drug for Alzheimer’s pa­tients, not a quick ex­it.

Down the line, EIP Phar­ma’s ap­proach to synap­tic dys­func­tion could touch “more or less every CNS dis­or­der,” from Parkin­sons and Hunt­ing­ton’s dis­ease to autism and stroke re­cov­ery mech­a­nisms. But for now, they will con­cen­trate on chas­ing the suc­cess that’s elud­ed one big play­er af­ter an­oth­er.

“We have a re­al­ly good shot,” Alam says.

Image courtesy of The Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson & Johnson.

Pro­tect­ing the glob­al phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal in­no­va­tion ecosys­tem – what’s at stake?

We are living in a new era of healthcare that is rapidly advancing progress impacting patient outcomes and experiences. We’ve seen a remarkable pace of transformational innovation, applied research, and advanced clinical development over the last decade.

Despite this tremendous progress, there is much more work to be done, and patients are counting on us – now more than ever – to continue that momentum. At the heart of our industry is a focus on developing and delivering medicines for some of the world’s most challenging diseases, including those that have few or no effective treatments today.

Roger Perlmutter, Eikon Therapeutics CEO

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Eikon Therapeutics announced three business development deals on Thursday, effectively dropping in a pipeline of cancer drugs alongside more than $100 million in fresh funding.

The Hayward, CA-based company has become one of biotech’s richest startups since its 2019 founding, having raised nearly $775 million. It’s developing a massive, automated research approach built around Nobel Prize-winning microscope science to peer inside cells and watch proteins in action. After its Series B last year, PitchBook reported a $3.02 billion valuation. And while CEO Roger Perlmutter declined to comment on that figure, he said its first tranche of nearly $106 million in Series C funding is a “meaningful step-up to our Series B valuation.”

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The Modulo Bio team with CEO Michael Horowitz (fourth from right in semicircle)

Ex­clu­sive: With $8M, neu­ro start­up Mod­u­lo Bio emerges to test small mol­e­cules for ALS, de­men­tia in CEO’s per­son­al mis­sion

Embarking on a personal mission after his best friend’s mother was diagnosed with a mutation-driven case of frontotemporal dementia, Michael Horowitz has pulled together $8 million in venture funding at Modulo Bio to create small molecules for neurodegenerative diseases.

The San Diego and Bay Area biotech will select its lead development candidate and some backup options within six months and then raise a Series A to investigate therapeutics for C9orf72 mutation-driven cases of ALS and frontotemporal dementia, Horowitz told Endpoints News.

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Eu­ro­pean Par­lia­ment calls mem­ber states to ac­tion on an­timi­cro­bial re­sis­tance

Members of the European Parliament have called on EU countries to develop national action plans against antimicrobial resistance (AMR), calling it a top-three priority health threat.

Parliament on Thursday announced recommendations for the fight against AMR, including national action plans that must be updated at least every two years, an EU-level database tracking AMR and antimicrobial use and increased partnership between the pharma industry, patient groups and academia.

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Roche plans to di­vest from lega­cy Genen­tech man­u­fac­tur­ing fa­cil­i­ty in Cal­i­for­nia

Roche is planning to make some changes to its subsidiary’s manufacturing network in California.

The Swiss pharma announced Wednesday that it plans to divest from Genentech’s manufacturing facility in Vacaville, CA, around 58 miles northeast of San Francisco. According to a statement from Roche, the move is part of a “broader strategy” to bring its manufacturing capabilities in line with its future pipeline. Roche is starting the process of finding a buyer for the site but has not named any candidates yet.

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Peter van de Sande, Synaffix CEO

Lon­za shells out $107M cash to snap up Synaf­fix and its ADC plat­form

After lining up a string of partnerships over the years, Dutch antibody-drug conjugate specialist Synaffix has found a new home: Lonza, the contract development and manufacturing giant.

Lonza is paying about $107 million (€100 million) in cash to acquire Synaffix, with up to $64 million (€60 million) in “additional performance-based consideration” on the table. Synaffix’s ADC tech platform will now become part of Lonza’s offering for biopharma clients, lending its bioconjugate technologies to not just ADCs but also targeted gene therapy, immune cell engagers and other applications.

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Who's con­fi­dent­ly in­vest­ing in biotech star­tups dur­ing these tense days? We've got some an­swers

We’ve got a changeup to our event schedule in Boston next week, where we’ll be doing a mix of live/streaming events at our base at The Seaport Hotel as part of a two-day lineup of webinars, virtual firesides and a cocktail hour Q&A with a veteran of the biotech financing scene.

The 9:30-10:30 am ET live slot on Tuesday, June 6, will now feature a panel conversation on the current state of affairs for VC investing in biotech, focusing on what startups are getting cash — and how. Alaa Halawa, head of US ventures at Mubadala, is confirmed, along with Brian Goodman at MPM and Geoff von Maltzahn, a general partner at Moderna-buoyed Flagship. I have a couple of other invites out and will let you know how that plays out.

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Albert Bourla, Pfizer CEO (Michel Euler/AP Images, Pool)

FDA ap­proves Pfiz­er’s RSV shot for old­er adults, tee­ing up a com­pet­i­tive $17B vac­cine mar­ket

The FDA approved Pfizer’s RSV vaccine called Abrysvo for older adults on Wednesday, placing another Big Pharma onto the commercial stage ahead of the next RSV season.

Pfizer’s approval comes weeks after GSK won approval for its rival shot, Arexvy. Those two vaccines are both approved for use in adults 60 years and older and will be reviewed by a CDC panel in June before they’re expected to commercially launch this fall. Wall Street analysts see RSV as the next multibillion-dollar vaccine market, with Jefferies analysts recently forecasting the RSV market will grow to $17 billion over the next decade.

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Richard Pazdur, FDA's OCE director (Flatiron Health via YouTube)

FDA's can­cer chief weighs in on com­mon chemo short­ages — re­port

Richard Pazdur, director of the FDA’s Oncology Center of Excellence, attributes the current shortage of two cancer drugs to drug companies that haven’t invested in building out their production capacity.

In an interview with The Cancer Letter, a weekly cancer publication, Pazdur said that the current shortages of cisplatin and carboplatin, a pair of drugs used to treat a wide range of cancer patients, are the result of two problems: manufacturers not investing in enhancing production capacity, and drug companies being dependent on one supplier of raw ingredients. The cisplatin shortage followed an inspection that revealed quality issues at a manufacturing facility, which then led to the shutdown of production. This led to a surge in carboplatin demand, creating a secondary shortage.

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