How does a biotech cel­e­brate its two-year an­niver­sary? For Im­metas Ther­a­peu­tics, it’s with an $11 mil­lion Se­ries A round and a game plan to fight age-re­lat­ed dis­ease.

Co-founders Gene Wang and David Sin­clair came to­geth­er years ago around the idea that in­flam­ma­tion is the ul­ti­mate process dri­ving age-re­lat­ed ill­ness­es, in­clud­ing can­cer. The duo launched Im­metas in 2018 and packed the staff with in­dus­try ex­perts. Wang, who says he’s al­ways had an en­tre­pre­neur­ial spir­it, has held lead roles at No­var­tis, GSK, Bris­tol My­ers Squibb and Mer­ck. He’s worked on block­buster drugs like Hu­mi­ra, Gar­dasil, Varu­bi and Zolin­za. And now, he’s chan­nel­ing that spir­it as CEO.

Sin­clair, sci­en­tif­ic ad­vi­sor, was named by Time as one of its “50 Most In­flu­en­tial Peo­ple in Health­care,” and di­rec­tor of Har­vard Uni­ver­si­ty’s Paul F. Glenn Cen­ter for Bi­ol­o­gy of Ag­ing Re­search. He al­so helped found Sir­tris, the biotech that Glax­o­SmithK­line bought in 2008 for $720 mil­lion in cash, then shut down five years lat­er. Im­metas CSO Jon­ah Rainey’s re­sume in­cludes lead­ing As­traZeneca’s bis­pe­cif­ic team.

The fi­nanc­ing round — from Morn­ing­side Ven­tures — will be used for “en­gi­neer­ing the weapon” against can­cer and os­teoarthri­tis, Wang said.

Age-spe­cif­ic can­cer in­ci­dence rates spike in the 55- to 59-year-old co­hort, with the high­est in­ci­dence rates in 85- to 89-year-olds, he point­ed out in a Zoom in­ter­view. “So ag­ing has a sig­nif­i­cant role in the patho­gen­e­sis of can­cer and pro­gres­sion of can­cer. And that’s what we’re fo­cus­ing on,” he said of the com­pa­ny’s lead pro­gram.

The NJ-based biotech has six bis­pe­cif­ic can­di­dates tar­get­ing “con­trol of in­flam­ma­tion in the tu­mor mi­croen­vi­ron­ment as a way to over­come the re­sis­tance to im­mune check­point ther­a­py,” Wang said. The can­di­dates are de­signed to block pro-in­flam­ma­to­ry path­ways in the tu­mor mi­croen­vi­ron­ment, fight­ing cells that pro­mote can­cer growth and sup­press im­mune re­sponse.

“Can­cer im­munother­a­py … specif­i­cal­ly in check­point ther­a­py, rev­o­lu­tion­ized can­cer treat­ment in re­cent years, as you know. But there’s still a large un­met med­ical need and many can­cer types we call cold tu­mors, right, they do not re­spond,” Wang said. “So vast ma­jori­ties of pa­tients with can­cer still do not ben­e­fit with tra­di­tion­al can­cer im­munother­a­py,” he added lat­er.

In os­teoarthri­tis, syn­ovial in­flam­ma­tion leads to car­ti­lage ero­sion, Wang ex­plained. Im­metas is work­ing on an in­tra-ar­tic­u­lar in­jec­tion that could mute macrophage and lym­pho­cyte ac­tiv­i­ty, and down­reg­u­late pro-in­flam­ma­to­ry cy­tokine lev­els.

By the end of the year, re­searchers plan to nar­row the six can­di­dates in pre­clin­i­cal de­vel­op­ment for age-re­lat­ed can­cer down to one. The com­pa­ny could sub­mit an IND ap­pli­ca­tion for the win­ner in ear­ly 2022, ac­cord­ing to Wang.

The firehose of biopharma news is gushing these days.

That’s why broader and deeper is the theme for 2021 at Endpoints. You can expect new coverage outside our core R&D focus, with deeper reporting in some key areas. When John Carroll and I launched Endpoints nearly five years ago, we were wading in waist-high waters. Now we’re a team of 25 full-time staffers (and growing) with plans to cover the flood of biopharma news, Endpoints-style.

It’s time for a new FDA commissioner to come on board, a rite of passage for Joe Biden’s administration that should help seal the new president’s rep on seeking out the experts to lead the government over the next 4 years.

As of now, the competition for the top job appears to have narrowed down to 2 people: The longtime CDER chief Janet Woodcock and Joshua Sharfstein, the former principal deputy at the FDA under Peggy Hamburg. Both were appointed by Barack Obama.

GlaxoSmithKline’s Benlysta isn’t alone in the small circle of approved lupus nephritis drugs anymore.

Little Aurinia Pharmaceuticals has gotten the green light from the FDA to start marketing its first and only program, voclosporin, under the brand name Lupkynis — something CEO Peter Greenleaf says it’s been ready to do since December.

Regulators went right down to the wire on the decision, keeping the company and the entire salesforce it’s already assembled on its toes.

After about four stealthy years in the development phase, San Diego-based Neuvogen is emerging with a new approach to whole-cell cancer vaccines and nine solid tumor programs bound for the clinic.

Whole-cell tumor vaccines are developed by taking cancer cells from patients and modifying them to make them immunogenic.

“What’s different from what we do, is most people use one cell line. We use six,” CEO Todd Binder said. From there, the company builds out six modifications to eliminate problematic immunosuppressive factors, and add what the executive called three “stimulatory factors” to generate a prime and overcome peripheral tolerance.