Jim Broderick

Jim Brod­er­ick reels in a $100M Se­ries B to ex­plore a 'new and big' an­gle of im­mune reg­u­la­tion

When Jim Brod­er­ick launched Mass­a­chu­setts-based Palleon Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals in 2015, he had an of­fice in Cam­bridge’s Kendall Square, a bit of seed mon­ey, and a blank can­vas.

He set out to in­no­vate with­in a new space in im­munol­o­gy, and re­cruit­ed sci­en­tif­ic co-founders Car­olyn Bertozzi, a Stan­ford pro­fes­sor, and Paul Crock­er, a pro­fes­sor and the head of the cell sig­nal­ing and im­munol­o­gy di­vi­sion at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Dundee, Scot­land, to help him do it.

“When you start a new com­pa­ny in biotech, you need to be in some­thing that’s new and big, and you need to have the world’s best sci­en­tists be­hind you,” Brod­er­ick, who was the first en­tre­pre­neur-in-res­i­dence at GSK’s ven­ture arm SR One, told End­points News.

On Wednes­day, the five-year-old com­pa­ny an­nounced the com­ple­tion of a $100 mil­lion Se­ries B round to de­vel­op its pipeline of gly­co-im­munol­o­gy ther­a­pies. Its lead pro­gram in on­col­o­gy, an en­zy­mat­ic sialo­gly­can de­grad­er, is ex­pect­ed to hit the clin­ic next year.

“Gly­can-me­di­at­ed im­mune reg­u­la­tion presents an enor­mous op­por­tu­ni­ty for nov­el ther­a­peu­tics to treat a range of dis­eases char­ac­ter­ized by im­mune sys­tem dys­func­tion, in­clud­ing can­cer and in­flam­ma­to­ry dis­eases,” the CEO an­nounced in a state­ment. Be­fore Palleon, Brod­er­ick co-found­ed three oth­er biotechs, in­clud­ing Ra Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals.

Ac­cord­ing to Brod­er­ick, it’s been known since 1959 that tu­mors have dif­fer­ent gly­can struc­tures on their sur­faces. “But no­body could fig­ure out what the gly­cans were do­ing,” he said.

The an­swer, he added, was hid­ing in plain sight. “But no­body could see it, be­cause we didn’t re­al­ly have the lens to view the im­mune sys­tem in this way that we now do.” The tu­mors, he said, use evolved gly­can struc­tures to hide from im­mune sys­tem at­tacks. And so Palleon is work­ing on us­ing cell sur­face sug­ar mol­e­cules to mod­u­late im­mune ac­tiv­i­ty.

In ad­di­tion to its EA­GLE plat­form, which us­es en­zy­mat­ic sialo­gly­can degra­da­tion to over­come in­tractable bi­o­log­i­cal re­dun­dan­cy and en­able a pan-im­mune an­ti-tu­mor re­sponse, the com­pa­ny al­so has its HY­DRA plat­form, which char­ac­ter­izes can­cer pa­tients by their tu­mor sur­face gly­can pro­file to iden­ti­fy which pa­tients are most like­ly to re­spond. Palleon says it’s de­vel­op­ing a “broad pipeline” of can­di­dates that tar­get in­di­vid­ual Siglecs and oth­er gly­can-sens­ing re­cep­tors, which may be use­ful against in­flam­ma­to­ry dis­eases like au­toim­mu­ni­ty and fi­bro­sis.

The Se­ries B, led by Ma­trix Cap­i­tal Man­ae­ment, will help push that pipeline to­ward the clin­ic, Brod­er­ick said. Re­turn­ing in­vestors SR One, Pfiz­er Ven­tures, Ver­tex Ven­tures HC, Take­da Ven­tures, and Ab­b­Vie Ven­tures, and new in­vestor Sur­vey­or Cap­i­tal al­so chipped in.

“It’s just a whole oth­er an­gle of im­mune reg­u­la­tion… You couldn’t see it be­fore… and now when you see it, there seems to be a lot of op­por­tu­ni­ty,” Brod­er­ick said.

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.

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.

Endpoints News

Keep reading Endpoints with a free subscription

Unlock this story instantly and join 163,900+ biopharma pros reading Endpoints daily — and it's free.

Sen­ate Fi­nance Com­mit­tee lobs more bi­par­ti­san pres­sure on­to PBMs

Congress is honing in on how it wants to overhaul the rules of the road for pharmacy benefit managers, with a Senate Finance Committee hearing Thursday serving as the latest example of the Hill’s readiness to make changes to how pharma middlemen operate.

While pledging to ensure patients and pharmacies “don’t get a raw deal,” Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden (D-OR) laid out the beginning of what looks like a major bipartisan effort — moves the PBM industry is likely to challenge vigorously.

Endpoints News

Keep reading Endpoints with a free subscription

Unlock this story instantly and join 163,900+ biopharma pros reading Endpoints daily — and it's free.

Nicklas Westerholm, Egetis Therapeutics CEO

Ac­qui­si­tion talks on­go­ing for Swedish rare dis­ease biotech Egetis, shares up al­most 40%

Shares of the Sweden-based rare disease biotech Egetis Therapeutics skyrocketed on Thursday afternoon as the company said it’s engaged in “ongoing discussion” with external parties regarding a “potential acquisition.”

Egetis confirmed rumors with a statement on Thursday while noting that there is no certainty that a takeover offer will be made.

Nonetheless, the possibility of an acquisition has shot up Egetis’ share price. By the afternoon on Thursday, its stock price was {$EGTX.ST} up over 38%. An Egetis spokesperson told Endpoints News in an email that it has no further comments.

Endpoints News

Keep reading Endpoints with a free subscription

Unlock this story instantly and join 163,900+ biopharma pros reading Endpoints daily — and it's free.

Lu­pus drug de­vel­op­ment mar­ket heat­ing up, while FDA links with ad­vo­ca­cy group to fur­ther ac­cel­er­ate re­search

The long-underserved systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) market is suddenly buzzing with treatment possibilities. Less than two years after AstraZeneca’s approval for Saphnelo — the first new SLE drug in a decade and joining just one other approved in GSK’s Benlysta – the pipeline of potential drugs numbers in the dozens.

Although most are very early stage — Spherix Global Insights estimates five in Phase II/III — the pharma R&D enthusiasm is catching on among doctors, patients and advocacy groups. On Wednesday, the Lupus Research Alliance and the FDA formed a novel private-public partnership called Lupus Accelerating Breakthroughs Consortium (Lupus ABC) to help advance lupus clinical trial success.

Endpoints News

Keep reading Endpoints with a free subscription

Unlock this story instantly and join 163,900+ biopharma pros reading Endpoints daily — and it's free.

Stéphane Bancel, Moderna CEO (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)

Mod­er­na so­lid­i­fies deal with Kenya to build mR­NA man­u­fac­tur­ing fa­cil­i­ty

The mRNA player Moderna is further cementing its presence on the African continent.

Moderna announced on Thursday that it has finalized an agreement with Kenya’s government to partner up and bring an mRNA manufacturing facility to the east African nation. The new facility aims to manufacture up to 500 million doses of vaccines annually. Moderna also said the new facility will have the ability to spike its production capabilities to respond to public health emergencies on the continent or globally.

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.

Endpoints News

Keep reading Endpoints with a free subscription

Unlock this story instantly and join 163,900+ biopharma pros reading Endpoints daily — and it's free.

Deborah Waterhouse, ViiV Healthcare CEO

MPP re­cruits three gener­ic man­u­fac­tur­ers to ex­pand use of Vi­iV's in­jectable PrEP drug

ViiV Healthcare has teamed up with the UN-backed Medicines Patent Pool and three generic manufacturers to expand access to medicine that can prevent HIV.

ViiV and the Medicines Patent Pool jointly announced Thursday that the MPP signed sub-licensing agreements with Aurobindo, Cipla and Viatris to manufacture generics of a long-acting form of cabotegravir for HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP). As a result of the agreement, the manufacturers will be able to develop, manufacture and supply generic versions of cabotegravir LA in 90 countries — subject to regulatory approvals.

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.