Judith Shizuru (Stanford Department of Medicine via YouTube)

Jasper Ther­a­peu­tics launch­es out of Stan­ford with new ap­proach to stem cell treat­ment

The first girl in the tri­al came in with chron­ic di­ar­rhea and the im­mune sys­tem of an un­treat­ed HIV pa­tient. Born with a rare ge­net­ic dis­ease that im­ped­ed her abil­i­ty to make B and T cells, she had once been giv­en a stem cell trans­plant but it didn’t take.  Back in the hos­pi­tal, she was in­ject­ed with a new ex­per­i­men­tal an­ti­body and then giv­en a new stem cell trans­plant. Soon, she gained weight. The di­ar­rhea stopped.

“She has nor­mal T cells now,” Ju­dith Shizu­ru, the Stan­ford sci­en­tist who pi­o­neered the an­ti­body, told End­points News. “She’s in school.”

It’s the kind of med­ical sto­ry to launch a biotech around. To­day, Shizu­ru’s com­pa­ny Jasper Ther­a­peu­tics is emerg­ing out of stealth-mode with $35 mil­lion in Se­ries A fund­ing led by Abing­worth and Qim­ing, a mol­e­cule from Am­gen, and a Phase I tri­al set for its first read­out on Mon­day at ASH.

Jasper is broad­ly aimed at mak­ing stem cell trans­plants safer, more ac­ces­si­ble and more ef­fec­tive by us­ing an­ti­bod­ies as con­di­tion­ing agents. These agents clear out bone mar­row to make room for the new stem cells to graft on­to the body.

The new com­pa­ny is one of a hand­ful now us­ing an­ti­bod­ies to help ease stem cell trans­plan­ta­tion. Cal­i­for­nia-based Forty Sev­en is test­ing a com­bi­na­tion of two an­ti­bod­ies, a c-Kit and a CD-47, in mon­keys. In Cam­bridge, Mass., Ma­gen­ta Ther­a­peu­tics is work­ing on a c-Kit that re­leas­es a tox­in af­ter it binds.

William Lis

Jasper’s Phase I us­es a naked an­ti­body called JSP191 to help pa­tients with se­vere com­bined au­toim­mune de­fi­cien­cy re­ceive stem cell trans­plants – the on­ly pos­si­ble cure for the life-threat­en­ing dis­ease – but such trans­plants are used in a wide va­ri­ety of con­di­tions and Jasper has broad­er aims. Those in­clude oth­er au­toim­mune dis­eases, acute myeloid leukemia and cell-di­rect­ed gene ther­a­py.

“There’s a sig­nif­i­cant amount of progress be­ing made in gene ther­a­py,” in­ter­im CEO William Lis told End­points, “but no progress be­ing made in a con­di­tion­ing agent that will help graft gene ther­a­py.”

Shizu­ru path to the new an­ti­body was long and for­tu­itous. In 1987, Arl Arzst, the leg­endary ad ex­ec­u­tive and pres­i­dent of Proc­tor and Gam­ble in­ter­na­tion­al flew in on a re­cruit­ing trip for Stan­ford busi­ness stu­dents. There he vis­it­ed Shizu­ru, a young bi­ol­o­gy PhD can­di­date, be­cause he knew her room­mate. Arzst’s daugh­ter had di­a­betes and as Shizu­ru ex­plained the work she was do­ing on pan­cre­at­ic islet cell trans­plants, he told her to come to Eu­rope.

Shizu­ru had nev­er been to Eu­rope, but there Ar­szt in­tro­duced her to Ken Far­ber and the oth­er founders of the Ju­ve­nile Di­a­betes Foun­da­tion (now the JDRF). The founders struck a years-long cor­re­spon­dence and en­cour­aged Shizu­ru to go to med­ical school, where she de­cid­ed that if sci­en­tists were ever go­ing to de­vel­op trans­plants that didn’t trig­ger an im­mune re­sponse, it would be through stem cell work. She con­tin­ued her work at the Irv Weiss­man’s Stan­ford re­gen­er­a­tive lab, where even­tu­al­ly a grad­u­ate stu­dent made a dis­cov­ery that piqued her in­ter­est.

To put new stem cells in, you have to get the old stem cells out. That’s not al­ways easy. The cells sit in these pock­ets in the bone mar­row, and they’re pret­ty com­fort­able there. Doc­tors have to force them out, of­ten us­ing chemother­a­py or ra­di­a­tion, which dam­age DNA and cause se­vere side ef­fects. The costs some­times out­weigh the ben­e­fits.

“There are dis­eases we’re not treat­ing be­cause it’s too dan­ger­ous,” Shizu­ru said. “And the kids we’re treat­ing, they’re so, so frag­ile.”

The grad stu­dent had shown in mice that an­ti­bod­ies could be used to de­plete the stem cells and po­ten­tial­ly elim­i­nate the need for chemother­a­py or ra­di­a­tion. Shizu­ru and her team be­gan look­ing to see if any­one had de­vel­oped a hu­man ver­sion of the an­ti­body, CD117. It turned out Am­gen had al­ready de­vel­oped a ver­sion of this an­ti­body for a dif­fer­ent use. It al­so turned out she had a for­mer post­doc and a for­mer ad­vi­sor who worked there. They be­gan a col­lab­o­ra­tion.

“We set out to cross the val­ley of death,” Shizu­ru said, us­ing an in­dus­try slang term for the jump from an­i­mal mod­els to hu­man us­es.

Af­ter mak­ing a va­ri­ety of tweaks to the treat­ment, they pub­lished a pa­per in Sci­ence Trans­la­tion­al Med­i­cine in 2016 show­ing the an­ti­bod­ies cre­at­ed a 10,000 fold re­duc­tion in the num­ber of stem cells in mice.

The same year, they be­gan a clin­i­cal tri­al on 90 SCID pa­tients. These pa­tients had re­ceived stem cell trans­plants when they were very young but hadn’t been giv­en chemo or ra­di­a­tion for fear the side ef­fects would be too se­vere. The orig­i­nal trans­plants boost­ed their num­ber of im­mune cells, but with­out chemo or ra­di­a­tion, the stem cells don’t graft in­to those pock­ets and the body won’t con­tin­ue pro­duc­ing T cells. With­out those, they are ex­tra­or­di­nar­i­ly prone to in­fec­tion. Many pass away be­fore age 2.

The hope is that the an­ti­bod­ies al­lowed the stem cells to graft, and the pre­lim­i­nary an­swer to that ques­tion will be out on Mon­day. For the first girl in the tri­al, life has im­proved but ques­tions about how long her body will make im­mune cells re­main. Still, for that girl and oth­ers, Shizu­ru is con­fi­dent.

“We see there is stem cell en­graft­ment,” Shur­izi said. “They are ac­tu­al­ly mak­ing new T cells.”

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.

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.

Endpoints News

Keep reading Endpoints with a free subscription

Unlock this story instantly and join 170,400+ biopharma pros reading Endpoints daily — and it's free.

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.”

Endpoints News

Keep reading Endpoints with a free subscription

Unlock this story instantly and join 170,400+ biopharma pros reading Endpoints daily — and it's free.

Eu­ro­pean Par­lia­ment calls mem­ber states to ac­tion on an­timi­cro­bial re­sis­tance

Members of the European Parliament have called on EU countries to develop national action plans against antimicrobial resistance (AMR), calling it a top-three priority health threat.

Parliament on Thursday announced recommendations for the fight against AMR, including national action plans that must be updated at least every two years, an EU-level database tracking AMR and antimicrobial use and increased partnership between the pharma industry, patient groups and academia.

Endpoints News

Keep reading Endpoints with a free subscription

Unlock this story instantly and join 170,400+ biopharma pros reading Endpoints daily — and it's free.

Roche plans to di­vest from lega­cy Genen­tech man­u­fac­tur­ing fa­cil­i­ty in Cal­i­for­nia

Roche is planning to make some changes to its subsidiary’s manufacturing network in California.

The Swiss pharma announced Wednesday that it plans to divest from Genentech’s manufacturing facility in Vacaville, CA, around 58 miles northeast of San Francisco. According to a statement from Roche, the move is part of a “broader strategy” to bring its manufacturing capabilities in line with its future pipeline. Roche is starting the process of finding a buyer for the site but has not named any candidates yet.

Endpoints News

Keep reading Endpoints with a free subscription

Unlock this story instantly and join 170,400+ biopharma pros reading Endpoints daily — and it's free.

Peter van de Sande, Synaffix CEO

Lon­za shells out $107M cash to snap up Synaf­fix and its ADC plat­form

After lining up a string of partnerships over the years, Dutch antibody-drug conjugate specialist Synaffix has found a new home: Lonza, the contract development and manufacturing giant.

Lonza is paying about $107 million (€100 million) in cash to acquire Synaffix, with up to $64 million (€60 million) in “additional performance-based consideration” on the table. Synaffix’s ADC tech platform will now become part of Lonza’s offering for biopharma clients, lending its bioconjugate technologies to not just ADCs but also targeted gene therapy, immune cell engagers and other applications.

Endpoints News

Keep reading Endpoints with a free subscription

Unlock this story instantly and join 170,400+ biopharma pros reading Endpoints daily — and it's free.

Who's con­fi­dent­ly in­vest­ing in biotech star­tups dur­ing these tense days? We've got some an­swers

We’ve got a changeup to our event schedule in Boston next week, where we’ll be doing a mix of live/streaming events at our base at The Seaport Hotel as part of a two-day lineup of webinars, virtual firesides and a cocktail hour Q&A with a veteran of the biotech financing scene.

The 9:30-10:30 am ET live slot on Tuesday, June 6, will now feature a panel conversation on the current state of affairs for VC investing in biotech, focusing on what startups are getting cash — and how. Alaa Halawa, head of US ventures at Mubadala, is confirmed, along with Brian Goodman at MPM and Geoff von Maltzahn, a general partner at Moderna-buoyed Flagship. I have a couple of other invites out and will let you know how that plays out.

Endpoints News

Keep reading Endpoints with a free subscription

Unlock this story instantly and join 170,400+ biopharma pros reading Endpoints daily — and it's free.

Albert Bourla, Pfizer CEO (Michel Euler/AP Images, Pool)

FDA ap­proves Pfiz­er’s RSV shot for old­er adults, tee­ing up a com­pet­i­tive $17B vac­cine mar­ket

The FDA approved Pfizer’s RSV vaccine called Abrysvo for older adults on Wednesday, placing another Big Pharma onto the commercial stage ahead of the next RSV season.

Pfizer’s approval comes weeks after GSK won approval for its rival shot, Arexvy. Those two vaccines are both approved for use in adults 60 years and older and will be reviewed by a CDC panel in June before they’re expected to commercially launch this fall. Wall Street analysts see RSV as the next multibillion-dollar vaccine market, with Jefferies analysts recently forecasting the RSV market will grow to $17 billion over the next decade.

Endpoints News

Keep reading Endpoints with a free subscription

Unlock this story instantly and join 170,400+ biopharma pros reading Endpoints daily — and it's free.

Richard Pazdur, FDA's OCE director (Flatiron Health via YouTube)

FDA's can­cer chief weighs in on com­mon chemo short­ages — re­port

Richard Pazdur, director of the FDA’s Oncology Center of Excellence, attributes the current shortage of two cancer drugs to drug companies that haven’t invested in building out their production capacity.

In an interview with The Cancer Letter, a weekly cancer publication, Pazdur said that the current shortages of cisplatin and carboplatin, a pair of drugs used to treat a wide range of cancer patients, are the result of two problems: manufacturers not investing in enhancing production capacity, and drug companies being dependent on one supplier of raw ingredients. The cisplatin shortage followed an inspection that revealed quality issues at a manufacturing facility, which then led to the shutdown of production. This led to a surge in carboplatin demand, creating a secondary shortage.

Endpoints News

Keep reading Endpoints with a free subscription

Unlock this story instantly and join 170,400+ biopharma pros reading Endpoints daily — and it's free.