Eye­ing an IPO, ADC Ther­a­peu­tics fu­els piv­otal can­cer tri­als with a $200M mega-round backed by As­traZeneca

Just days af­ter Gilead and its new sub­sidiary Kite won a ground­break­ing FDA ap­proval for their CAR-T ther­a­py Yescar­ta for B-cell lym­phomas, Lau­sanne, Switzer­land-based ADC Ther­a­peu­tics is rolling out a jaw-drop­ping $200 mil­lion mega-round to gam­ble — in part — on a next-gen an­ti­body-drug con­ju­gate that the back­ers feel can com­pete just fine with the per­son­al­ized cell ther­a­py.

The lat­est round brings ADC’s to­tal ven­ture take to $455 mil­lion, po­si­tion­ing them for a pair of Phase II stud­ies that po­ten­tial­ly could put them in line for an ac­cel­er­at­ed ap­proval — par­tic­u­lar­ly if they come close to match­ing the orig­i­nal proof-of-con­cept da­ta that was post­ed last June.

Chris Mar­tin was one of the orig­i­nal board mem­bers at ADC back in 2011 when the biotech was launched. Al­most ex­act­ly three years ago he helped arrange the sale of the UK’s Spirogen — where he was CEO — to As­traZeneca in a $440 mil­lion deal, which the phar­ma gi­ant paired with a $20 mil­lion in­vest­ment in ADC. As­traZeneca matched that in­vest­ment with an un­spec­i­fied li­cens­ing deal with ADC which is in the clin­ic. Au­ven Ther­a­peu­tics — found­ed by Stephen Evans-Freke and Pe­ter Corr in Lau­sanne — fund­ed both com­pa­nies and Mar­tin be­came the CEO at ADC two years ago.

Chris Mar­tin

Au­ven Ther­a­peu­tics al­so joined the ex­pand­ed syn­di­cate on this round, along­side Red­mile, the Wild fam­i­ly of­fice and As­traZeneca, among oth­er un­named in­vestors.

But ADC and Spirogen didn’t just share a com­mon fi­nan­cial pedi­gree, they al­so share a tech­nol­o­gy: pyrroloben­zo­di­azepine-based war­heads which the re­searchers be­lieve are or­ders of mag­ni­tude bet­ter than the first gen­er­a­tion of an­ti­body-drug con­ju­gates that were steered to the mar­ket by Seat­tle Ge­net­ics and oth­ers. These drugs use an an­ti­body to steer their way to can­cer cells and then drop a tox­ic pay­load where they are in­tend­ed to do the most good.

Last sum­mer, ADC backed up its new-wave boast by rolling out an ear­ly snap­shot of Phase I hu­man da­ta from its two lead ther­a­pies — AD­CT-301 and AD­CT-402.

Their 402 pro­gram tar­gets CD19, a fa­vorite in the CAR-T crowd. And re­searchers un­der CMO Jay Fein­gold, a for­mer VP of can­cer re­search at Wyeth, reg­is­tered a 57% over­all re­sponse rate, with an im­pres­sive 43% com­plete re­sponse tal­ly in drug-re­sis­tant cas­es of dif­fuse large B-cell lym­phomas. Their drug 301 came in with a 38% over­all re­sponse rate in a small group of re­frac­to­ry Hodgkin’s lym­phoma pa­tients.

Mar­tin, in his own un­der­stat­ed way, tells me: “We were en­cour­aged by that.”

ADC has been grow­ing as the cash con­tin­ues to roll in. Now 66 staffers, Mar­tin ex­pects to have a pay­roll of 70 by year’s end. On­ly 14 of those jobs are ac­tu­al­ly in Lau­sanne, the rest are scat­tered around the biotech world. The pre­clin­i­cal work is done in Lon­don, clin­i­cal de­vel­op­ment in New Jer­sey and man­u­fac­tur­ing is in San Fran­cis­co, where they’ve been work­ing with Stem­cen­trx, now a sub­sidiary of Ab­b­Vie.

Both of these mid-stage stud­ies are ex­pect­ed to get start­ed in the first half of next year, with 402 out front with a Q1 launch. Mar­tin ex­pects pa­tient re­cruit­ment to take about 6 months, with da­ta by the end of 2018 or ear­ly 2019, when they can re­view about fil­ing with the reg­u­la­to­ry agen­cies. Mar­tin isn’t promis­ing ex­act­ly when that will be, but fil­ing on Phase II in can­cer is now stan­dard op­er­at­ing pro­ce­dure in the on­col­o­gy world.

“At the mo­ment,” he says, “our over­all guid­ing prin­ci­ple is to get ef­fec­tive drugs in­to pa­tients that need it as quick­ly as pos­si­ble.”

While Yescar­ta has been post­ing im­pres­sive out­comes ahead of 402, Mar­tin doesn’t feel like they’ve been beat­en to the punch on DL­B­CL. Quite the con­trary. With a drug that can be de­liv­ered straight to pa­tients, pre­sum­ably at a low­er cost and sim­i­lar ef­fi­ca­cy, with a much safer side ef­fect pro­file, he feels the lit­tle biotech can com­pete with Gilead and its glob­al mar­ket­ing or­ga­ni­za­tion.

By next year, ADC will al­so have six ther­a­pies in the clin­ic — with two more lin­ing up INDs — open­ing up some more part­ner­ing prospects.

In the mean­time, Mar­tin is al­so qui­et­ly con­fi­dent that the com­pa­ny will be in a good po­si­tion to IPO, when the time is right. At this point, with a pri­vate syn­di­cate ready to come up with the biggest Eu­ro­pean biotech round in some three years, he says an IPO would have just proven to be a ma­jor dis­trac­tion. Un­til the right time, he says, ADC re­mains “IPO ready,” with au­dit­ed fi­nan­cials and a prospec­tus it’s keep­ing up to date as they pro­ceed.

Forge Bi­o­log­ics’ cGMP Com­pli­ant and Com­mer­cial­ly Vi­able Be­spoke Affin­i­ty Chro­matog­ra­phy Plat­form

Forge Biologics has developed a bespoke affinity chromatography platform approach that factors in unique vector combinations to streamline development timelines and assist our clients in efficiently entering the clinic. By leveraging our experience with natural and novel serotypes and transgene conformations, we are able to accelerate affinity chromatography development by nearly 3-fold. Many downstream purification models are serotype-dependent, demanding unique and time-consuming development strategies for each AAV gene therapy product1. With the increasing demand to propel AAV gene therapies to market, platform purification methods that support commercial-scale manufacturing of high-quality vectors with excellent safety and efficacy profiles are essential.

Luke Miels, GSK chief commercial officer

GSK picks up Scynex­is' FDA-ap­proved an­ti­fun­gal drug for $90M up­front

GSK is dishing out $90 million cash to add an antifungal drug to its commercial portfolio, in a deal spotlighting the pharma giant’s growing focus on infectious diseases.

The upfront will lock in an exclusive license to Scynexis’ Brexafemme, which was approved in 2021 to treat a yeast infection known as vulvovaginal candidiasis, except in China and certain other countries where Scynexis already out-licensed the drug.

Endpoints News

Keep reading Endpoints with a free subscription

Unlock this story instantly and join 163,900+ biopharma pros reading Endpoints daily — and it's free.

Feng Zhang (Susan Walsh/AP Images)

In search of new way to de­liv­er gene ed­i­tors, CRISPR pi­o­neer turns to mol­e­c­u­lar sy­ringes

Bug bacteria are ruthless.

Some soil bacteria have evolved tiny, but deadly injection systems that attach to insect cells, perforate them and release toxins inside — killing a bug in just a few days’ time. Scientists, on the other hand, want to leverage that system to deliver medicines.

In a paper published Wednesday in Nature, MIT CRISPR researcher Feng Zhang and his lab describe how they engineered these syringes made by bacteria to deliver potential therapies like toxins that kill cancer cells and gene editors. With the help of an AI program, they developed syringes that can load proteins of their choice and selectively target human cells.

Endpoints News

Keep reading Endpoints with a free subscription

Unlock this story instantly and join 163,900+ biopharma pros reading Endpoints daily — and it's free.

CSL CEO Paul McKenzie (L) and CMO Bill Mezzanotte

Q&A: New­ly-mint­ed CSL chief ex­ec­u­tive Paul McKen­zie and chief med­ical of­fi­cer Bill Mez­zan­otte

Paul McKenzie took over as CEO of Australian pharma giant CSL this month, following in the footsteps of long-time CSL vet Paul Perreault.

With an eye on mRNA, and quickly commercializing its new, $3.5 million-per-shot gene therapy for hemophilia B, McKenzie and chief medical officer Bill Mezzanotte answered some questions from Endpoints News this afternoon about where McKenzie is going to take the company and what advances may be coming to market from CSL’s pipeline. Below is a lightly edited transcript.

Boehringer re­ports ro­bust sales led by type 2 di­a­betes and pul­monary drugs, promis­es more to come high­light­ing obe­si­ty

Boehringer Ingelheim reported human pharma sales of €18.5 billion on Wednesday, led by type 2 diabetes and heart failure drug Jardiance and pulmonary fibrosis med Ofev. Jardiance sales reached €5.8 billion, growing 39% year over year, while Ofev took in €3.2 billion, notching its own 20.6% annual jump.

However, Boehringer is also looking ahead with its pipeline, estimating “In the next seven years the company expects about 20 regulatory approvals in human pharma.”

FDA ap­proves Nar­can opi­oid over­dose re­ver­sal spray for over-the-counter sale

The FDA today approved Emergent BioSolutions’ Narcan brand naloxone nasal spray for over-the-counter sales. The nod was expected and comes on the heels of a unanimous 19-0 advisory committee vote in favor of approval last month.

The move to OTC means the opioid overdose reversal agent will now be available on grocery, convenience and gas stations shelves, as well as potentially for purchase online.

Jeff Bluestone (R), Sonoma Biotherapeutics CEO

Jef­frey Blue­stone brings his start­up haul to $400M+, join­ing forces with Re­gen­eron on cell ther­a­pies

These days, when Jeffrey Bluestone gets together with his contemporaries in science, the conversation often turns to retirement plans.

But a little more than three years ago, Bluestone reached a momentous turning point in his career, exiting a prestigious post at UCSF, where he had spent decades in the scientific pursuit of new therapies. And it had nothing to do with retirement anytime in the near future.

Endpoints Premium

Premium subscription required

Unlock this article along with other benefits by subscribing to one of our paid plans.

Mathai Mammen, FogPharma's next CEO

Math­ai Mam­men hands in J&J's R&D keys to lead Greg Ver­dine’s Fog­Phar­ma 

In the early 1990s, Mathai Mammen was a teaching assistant in Greg Verdine’s Science B46 course at Harvard. In June, the former R&D head at Johnson & Johnson will succeed Verdine as CEO, president and chair of FogPharma, the same month the seven-year-old biotech kickstarts its first clinical trial.

After leading R&D at one of the largest drugmakers in the world, taking the company through more than half a dozen drug approvals in the past few years, not to mention a Covid-19 vaccine race, Mammen departed J&J last month and will take the helm of a Cambridge, MA biotech attempting to go after what Verdine calls the “true emperor of all oncogenes” — beta-catenin.

Endpoints News

Keep reading Endpoints with a free subscription

Unlock this story instantly and join 163,900+ biopharma pros reading Endpoints daily — and it's free.

Kourosh Davarpanah, Inato CEO

Big Phar­ma-part­nered clin­i­cal tri­al match­mak­er se­cures $20M to im­prove plat­form

A company with public links to Sanofi and Moderna has raised more money to expand its mission of improving diversity and enrollment in clinical trials.

Inato put the word out on Wednesday that it raised $20 million via an A2 round to advance its matching platform between pharma companies and potential clinical trial sites.

Inato CEO Kourosh Davarpanah told Endpoints News that with the $20 million in hand, it will pursue improvements to its diversity offerings, its focus on oncology and data collection.