Mark Gold­smith Rev­o­lu­tion

Gilead is jump­ing on board the pro­tein degra­da­tion band­wag­on. And they’re turn­ing to a low-pro­file Third Rock start­up for the ex­per­tise. But if you were look­ing for a trans­for­ma­tion­al deal to kick up fresh en­thu­si­asm for Gilead, you’ll have to re­main pa­tient.

This one will have a long way to go be­fore they get in­to the clin­ic.

The big biotech said Wednes­day morn­ing that it is pay­ing $45 mil­lion up­front and re­serv­ing a whop­ping $2.3 bil­lion in biotech bucks if San Fran­cis­co-based Nurix can point the way to new can­cer ther­a­pies, as well as drugs for oth­er, un­spec­i­fied dis­eases.

John McHutchi­son Gilead

Still in the pre­clin­i­cal phase 5 years af­ter Mark Gold­smith — dis­patched by Third Rock to launch West Coast biotechs and now CEO at Rev­o­lu­tion — boot­ed up the com­pa­ny with an un­usu­al­ly lean $25 mil­lion ven­ture round, Nurix quick­ly picked up an im­pres­sive $150 mil­lion up­front from a new deal back in 2015 with the then pro­lif­ic Cel­gene. It has 2 pre­clin­i­cal ef­forts un­der­way, one in house and a CDL-B pro­gram paired with Cel­gene, which will soon mi­grate to Bris­tol-My­ers Squibb.

Gilead CSO John McHutchi­son counts him­self as an ad­mir­er of Nurix’s tech plat­form, hop­ing it pans out “as we con­tin­ue to build a pipeline of small mol­e­cule ther­a­peu­tics for pa­tients with can­cers and oth­er dis­eases.”

Jay Brad­ner No­var­tis

The fo­cus at Nurix, and now Gilead, is the ubiq­ui­tin sys­tem and key en­zymes called E3 lig­as­es. Pro­tein degra­da­tion has proved a promis­ing ap­proach in on­col­o­gy, at­tract­ing a group of play­ers to the field. Arv­inas is one of the most promi­nent, adding an ag deal with Bay­er a few days ago with $115 mil­lion built-in up­front. But it is by no means play­ing so­lo in the sec­ond-gen pro­tein degra­da­tion field. Ri­vals to the pro­tein degra­da­tion ti­tle in­clude C4 Ther­a­peu­tics — out of Jay Brad­ner’s lab at Dana Far­ber be­fore he took the helm at NI­BR — and the start­up Kymera. And not sur­pris­ing­ly, Brad­ner — who now runs NI­BR — re­cent­ly forged a close re­la­tion­ship with UC Berke­ley on pro­tein degra­da­tion as well.

Nurix gets a chance to co-pro­mote drugs in the deal they did with Gilead, pro­vid­ed they pick up half the de­vel­op­ment costs.

So­cial im­age: Er­ic Ris­berg, AP Im­ages

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.

Three years after a brain cancer failure sent the company reeling, VBL Therapeutics is touting its first hint of positive Phase III results.

The Israeli biotech announced its lead drug, VB–111, met an interim efficacy benchmark in a trial testing it against standard-of-care alone in recurrent, chemotherapy-resistant ovarian cancer.  The patients in the treatment arm had a CA-125 response rate — a measure of cancer antigen often used as a proxy in ovarian cancer studies and in detecting ovarian cancer — at least 10% higher than those in the control, the independent review determined.