Bruce Hironaka, IgGenix CEO

IgGenix emerges from stealth with $10 mil­lion Se­ries A hop­ing to re-en­gi­neer al­ler­gic cas­cade

A lit­tle over six months af­ter the FDA ap­proved the first treat­ment for peanut al­ler­gies, a new biotech has emerged hop­ing to break through in a field that’s seen vir­tu­al­ly no in­no­va­tion.

IgGenix came out of stealth mode Tues­day morn­ing, an­nounc­ing a $10 mil­lion Se­ries A round to get the com­pa­ny start­ed. The Cal­i­for­nia-based biotech aims to fo­cus not just on peanuts, but all types of food al­ler­gies and re­lat­ed se­ri­ous con­di­tions by de­vel­op­ing a plat­form that can in­ter­fere with the al­ler­gic cas­cade. Fi­nanc­ing was led by Khosla Ven­tures and joined by Park­er Ven­tures.

When an al­ler­gic re­ac­tion oc­curs, the body pro­duces an ex­ces­sive amount of al­ler­gen-spe­cif­ic an­ti­bod­ies called im­munoglob­u­lin E, or IgE. This over­re­ac­tion by the im­mune sys­tem leads to the al­ler­gic cas­cade, which can man­i­fest in symp­toms rang­ing from mild itch­ing and swelling to full-blown ana­phy­lac­tic shock.

What IgGenix hopes to do is re-en­gi­neer the IgE an­ti­bod­ies, iso­lat­ing and trans­form­ing them in­to IgG an­ti­bod­ies that are de­signed to al­le­vi­ate and pos­si­bly pre­vent the al­ler­gic cas­cade. While the com­pa­ny is still yet to reach the clin­ic, CEO Bruce Hi­ron­a­ka said, IgGenix hopes to pro­duce a treat­ment that looks like a self-in­jectable project ad­min­is­tered pe­ri­od­i­cal­ly, sim­i­lar to an al­ler­gy shot.

“We don’t know yet how of­ten it would need to be done, but the hope is that the ther­a­py could be some­thing that peo­ple in the al­ler­gy space have ex­pe­ri­ence with be­fore,” Hi­ron­a­ka told End­points News. “Hope­ful­ly we won’t be do­ing our in­jec­tions as of­ten as al­ler­gy shots, but that’s to be de­ter­mined.”

That con­cept dif­fers from Aim­mune’s oral peanut al­ler­gy ther­a­py Pal­forzia, which won FDA ap­proval back in Jan­u­ary and ad­min­is­ters es­ca­lat­ing dos­es of a peanut pro­tein to chil­dren to help build re­sis­tance. Hi­ron­a­ka said he was glad to see some al­ler­gy treat­ment fi­nal­ly re­ceive the green light, but as­sert­ed that IgGenix is one of the few, if not on­ly, com­pa­nies ad­dress­ing the un­der­ly­ing mech­a­nism of al­ler­gies.

Kari Nadeau

The sci­en­tif­ic team at IgGenix is all in­cred­i­bly pas­sion­ate about al­ler­gies as well, Hi­ron­a­ka said, as it’s a per­son­al is­sue for every­one. Sci­en­tif­ic co-founder Stephen Quake, a pro­fes­sor of bio­engi­neer­ing and ap­plied physics at Stan­ford, has a daugh­ter with se­vere al­ler­gies. Chief tech­ni­cal of­fi­cer Derek Croote has a dairy al­ler­gy. And Kari Nadeau, the oth­er sci­en­tif­ic co-founder, is a world-renowned al­ler­gist.

Hi­ron­a­ka’s old­er daugh­ter al­so suf­fers from se­vere peanut al­ler­gies, and he re­count­ed a tale from when they were do­ing col­lege tours and was ac­ci­den­tal­ly served food with traces of the al­ler­gen.

“Watch­ing her grow up, hav­ing to be wor­ried about in­gest­ing a peanut or some oth­er al­ler­gen for her, is not just a ma­jor bur­den on her but ob­vi­ous­ly her par­ents wor­ry quite a bit about that,” Hi­ron­a­ka said. “Un­for­tu­nate­ly the wait staff was not to­tal­ly up to date on the menu … she calm­ly put her­self on the floor of the restau­rant and in­ject­ed her­self with her EpiPen.”

For now, IgGenix will fo­cus on ex­pand­ing and “de-risk­ing” the plat­form tech­nol­o­gy and start to build pre­clin­i­cal can­di­dates for food and non-food al­ler­gies. Hi­ron­a­ka al­so said the com­pa­ny is look­ing for some­one to suc­ceed him as CEO, giv­en that he’s at a stage in his ca­reer where he’s not look­ing for any­thing long-term.

And though Hi­ron­a­ka said it would be “ir­re­spon­si­ble” to say IgGenix can ul­ti­mate­ly de­vel­op a cure for al­ler­gies, the team is en­ticed by the prospect.

“We don’t know yet,” Hi­ron­a­ka said. “We do have dis­cus­sions about our ap­proach be­ing po­ten­tial­ly pro­phy­lac­tic, but I think we need more da­ta to re­al­ly be able to start think­ing we can go as far as be­ing a cure to one or more food al­ler­gy types. Ob­vi­ous­ly, we’d love to be able to get there.”

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 lines up deals, fresh fund­ing at Eikon; Sec­ond RSV vac­cine ap­proved; Sev­er­al biotechs flash­ing red; and more

Welcome back to Endpoints Weekly, your review of the week’s top biopharma headlines. Want this in your inbox every Saturday morning? Current Endpoints readers can visit their reader profile to add Endpoints Weekly. New to Endpoints? Sign up here.

As you come back to our website this weekend for ASCO news, don’t forget to check out our updated event lineup at BIO, which will cover everything from the current state of VC investing in biotech to top pharma R&D chiefs discussing how to make pipeline decisions.

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Bris­tol My­er­s' Op­di­vo keeps can­cer at bay in more lym­phoma pa­tients than Seagen's Ad­cetris in PhI­II: #AS­CO23

CHICAGO — In a study pitting Seagen’s Adcetris against Bristol Myers Squibb’s Opdivo in newly diagnosed patients with advanced classic Hodgkin lymphoma, a greater proportion of those who received Opdivo saw no cancer growth at one year compared to those who got Adcetris.

In addition, patients in the Opdivo arm of the Phase III trial reported reduced toxicities, according to lead investigator Alex Herrera, a hematologist-oncologist at City of Hope’s cancer cancer in Duarte, CA. Notably, the trial included more than 200 children across both arms. Generally, more than half of children with advanced Hodgkin lymphoma receive radiation therapy, but in this trial, dubbed SWOG S1826, only a handful of patients in the two arms received radiotherapy, sparing many children from long-term side effects of radiation.

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Full TIG­IT da­ta from Gilead, Ar­cus show low­er PFS rates than De­cem­ber read­out: #AS­CO23

CHICAGO — Gilead and Arcus unveiled a fuller snapshot of a Phase II study testing their experimental cancer immunotherapy combo that showed lower progression-free survival rates than its previous update, results that are likely to spark further debate over the closely-watched clinical trial.

Last December, the anti-TIGIT/anti-PD-L1 combo, positioned as a first-line treatment for non-small cell lung cancer, recorded data that drew mixed reactions. The latest analysis, presented Saturday afternoon at ASCO, included only a handful more patients than the previous update, but PFS rates fell — in one cohort by nearly three months.

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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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Servi­er’s vo­rasi­denib stalls pro­gres­sion of brain can­cer by 61% in piv­otal PhI­II IN­DI­GO study: #AS­CO23

An experimental pill from Servier Pharmaceuticals showed potentially practice-changing results in a narrow group of brain cancer patients, cutting the risk of their cancers progressing by 61%, according to a late-stage clinical trial.

The drug, vorasidenib, is a precision medicine that only works in certain people whose cancer carries mutations in one of two genes called IDH1/2. Doctors hope that the therapy will delay the need for chemotherapy or radiation, which are often used to combat relapses in patients who’ve previously undergone surgery to remove brain tumors.

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Take­da ax­es gene ther­a­py deal with Po­sei­da Ther­a­peu­tics amid broad­er re­think

Less than two years after Takeda inked a collaboration with Poseida Therapeutics to develop six liver-directed and hematopoietic stem cell-directed in vivo gene therapies, Takeda will end the partnership on July 30, the company confirmed to Endpoints News.

The breakup is not unexpected, coming on the heels of Takeda’s April announcement that it planned to stop discovery and preclinical work in AAV gene therapy, as well as research and preclinical work on rare hematology. A representative for Takeda confirmed that the partnership ended because of the company’s decision to stop that work.

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Roger Perlmutter, Eikon Therapeutics CEO

Roger Perl­mut­ter builds Eikon's pipeline with deal-mak­ing flur­ry, rais­ing $106M more

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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As­traZeneca tri­al shows mod­est ben­e­fit in ovar­i­an can­cer, but doc­tors say it's hard to ap­ply find­ings: #AS­CO23

CHICAGO — Adding AstraZeneca’s Imfinzi and Lynparza to the treatment regimen for patients with advanced ovarian cancer and no BRCA mutation extended progression-free survival (PFS) by five months, according to interim data released at the ASCO annual meeting Saturday morning.

However, the design of the Phase III study obscures how much Imfinzi is contributing to the PFS extension, doctors said, making it difficult to apply the findings to clinical practice.

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