Google backs I/O start­up Ar­cus in $107M deal

Ar­cus Bio­sciences, with its in­trigu­ing can­cer pipeline and big shot CEO, has been a VC fa­vorite since its in­cep­tion in 2015. Now, Google’s ven­ture arm is back­ing the Bay Area start­up in a new $107 mil­lion round, bring­ing the com­pa­ny’s to­tal haul to a quar­ter bil­lion in start­up cap­i­tal in two years.

The lat­est in­fu­sion of cash was led by GV (for­mer­ly Google Ven­tures), with top-tier VC funds lin­ing up to join, in­clud­ing Welling­ton Man­age­ment Com­pa­ny, EcoR1 Cap­i­tal and oth­ers.

It’s not hard to see why, as Ar­cus has all the things in­vestors like to see: drugs in a hot area of de­vel­op­ment, a chief ex­ec­u­tive with a stel­lar rep­u­ta­tion, and a pipeline stacked with sev­er­al im­muno-on­col­o­gy hope­fuls.

Ter­ry Rosen

Ar­cus’ CEO Ter­ry Rosen is best known as the guy who took Flexus Bio from in­cep­tion to a $1.25 bil­lion sale in less than two years. He joined Ar­cus short­ly af­ter the sale, where he and the ex­ec­u­tive team built the start­up in stealth un­til its com­ing out par­ty last Au­gust.

Now, Rosen is busy gear­ing up the start­up’s pipeline to en­ter the clin­ic.

“We have been as­sem­bling a team of staff, in­vestors, lead­er­ship and ad­vi­sors with a high­ly aligned long-term vi­sion to cre­ate, de­vel­op and com­mer­cial­ize in­no­v­a­tive can­cer im­munother­a­pies that may of­fer a mean­ing­ful ben­e­fit to pa­tients over ex­ist­ing treat­ments,” Rosen said in a state­ment.

Ar­cus is de­vel­op­ing small mol­e­cule and an­ti­body pro­grams with plans to build its own ar­se­nal of drug com­bos.

The new cash will be used to move for­ward AB928, a dual adeno­sine re­cep­tor an­tag­o­nist, and AB122, a PD-1 an­ti­body. Ar­cus start­ed a Phase I tri­al of AB928 in ear­ly No­vem­ber, and has a Phase I/II tri­al sched­uled for the first half of 2018 to test a AB928/AB122 com­bo in can­cer pa­tients.

The fresh cap­i­tal will al­so al­low Ar­cus to ac­cel­er­ate a cou­ple ex­tra ex­per­i­men­tal drugs in­to the clin­ic, in­clud­ing AB680 (small mol­e­cule CD73 in­hibitor) and AB154 (TIG­IT an­ti­body).

The in­vest­ment round comes a few months af­ter Ar­cus scored a deal (worth up to $816 mil­lion) to li­cense an an­ti-PD-1 an­ti­body de­vel­oped at Chi­na’s Glo­ria Phar­ma and WuXi Bi­o­log­ics.

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.

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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See­los Ther­a­peu­tics 'tem­porar­i­ly' stops study in rare neu­ro dis­or­der for busi­ness rea­sons

Microcap biotech Seelos Therapeutics is halting enrollment of its study in spinocerebellar ataxia type 3 (also known as Machado-Joseph disease) because of “financial considerations,” and in order to focus on other studies, the company said today, adding that the pause would be temporary.

The study will continue with the patients who have already enrolled, and the data from them will be used to decide whether to continue enrolling others in the future.

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.

UK gov­ern­ment, pri­vate in­vestors dole out $340M+ to drug, di­ag­nos­tic man­u­fac­tur­ers

The government of the United Kingdom is giving out grants to several manufacturers that have a presence in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

The government announced that four companies, including Ipsen, contract manufacturer Pharmaron, DNA manufacturer Touchlight and diagnostic test producer Randox, will receive a total of £277 million ($341.1 million). According to a release from the UK government, this represents the first portion of grants from the Life Sciences Innovative Manufacturing Fund.

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.