Patrick Baeuer­le

Patrick Baeuer­le has been busy. Right af­ter steer­ing next-gen BiTE com­pa­ny Har­poon Ther­a­peu­tics to­ward an IPO, the MPM part­ner and im­mu­nol­o­gist is shep­herd­ing an­oth­er on­col­o­gy com­pa­ny with pre­clin­i­cal as­sets — TCR² Ther­a­peu­tics — in­to a pub­lic list­ing. And this time the biotech is look­ing for $100 mil­lion-plus in a mar­ket that’s been on a wild roller coast­er ride.

The im­munother­a­py com­pa­ny is de­vel­op­ing next-gen T-cell drugs for can­cer in an ef­fort to con­front lim­i­ta­tions posed by cur­rent T-cell and CAR-T ther­a­pies in sol­id tu­mors.

Robert Hofmeis­ter

One of the key com­po­nents of the im­mune sys­tem are T cells, which oblit­er­ate can­cer cells by us­ing T cell re­cep­tor (TCR) recog­ni­tion of cell sur­face mark­ers known as anti­gens. When a T cell rec­og­nizes a tu­mor anti­gen via the TCR, it snuffs the ma­lig­nant cell on which it re­sides. Ex­ist­ing T cell ther­a­pies for can­cer, in­clud­ing CAR-T cells and en­gi­neered TCR-T cells, at­tempt to repli­cate this mech­a­nism.

The drug de­vel­op­er’s tech­nol­o­gy — called TRuC-T cells — is de­signed to rec­og­nize and kill can­cer cells by har­ness­ing the TCR sig­nal­ing com­plex, un­like CAR-T for in­stance, which on­ly taps in­to a part of the TCR struc­ture. In con­trast to ex­ist­ing T cell ther­a­pies, the TCR² tech­nol­o­gy is fash­ioned such that it could be used across pa­tients that ex­press the can­cer sur­face anti­gen ir­re­spec­tive of hu­man leuko­cyte anti­gens (HLA) sub­type, which could po­ten­tial­ly ad­dress a larg­er group of pa­tients.

The com­pa­ny has 5 drugs in its ar­se­nal. Its lead can­di­date — TC-210 — is be­ing de­vel­oped to tar­get mesothe­lin-pos­i­tive sol­id tu­mors. An ap­pli­ca­tion to test the drug in hu­mans was sub­mit­ted in De­cem­ber and the com­pa­ny ex­pects to con­duct a Phase I/II study ear­ly in 2019, and even­tu­al­ly ap­ply for the FDA’s fast track sta­tus. Its sec­ond drug, TC-110, is be­ing eval­u­at­ed for CD19-pos­i­tive B-cell hema­to­log­i­cal ma­lig­nan­cies. An IND is ex­pect­ed to be filed in the sec­ond half of 2019 and the com­pa­ny will al­so seek a fast track des­ig­na­tion for this as­set.  The rest — TC-220, TC-310 and TC-410 — are in ear­li­er stages of pre­clin­i­cal de­vel­op­ment.

Al­fon­so Quin­tás Car­dama

TCR² will have two ex­pe­ri­enced sci­en­tif­ic minds work­ing on their pipeline in the clin­ic: Robert Hofmeis­ter, who de­vel­oped one of the first PD-L1 in­hibitors — Baven­cio — while at EMD Serono, will serve as CSO, while Al­fon­so Quin­tás Car­dama, who was piv­otal in the ap­proval process for one of the two li­censed T cell ther­a­pies for hema­to­log­i­cal ma­lig­nan­cies — No­var­tis’ Kym­ri­ah — will serve as CMO.

The com­pa­ny will be list­ed on the Nas­daq un­der the sym­bol $TCRR, ac­cord­ing to the S-1 post­ed last week. TCR² was found­ed by Baeuer­le, a part­ner at MPM who pre­vi­ous­ly served as CSO at Mi­cromet be­fore it was swal­lowed by Am­gen. Baeuer­le was ush­ered in­to Am­gen — where R&D was then run by Roger Perl­mut­ter — fol­low­ing the buy­out, to help take Mi­cromet’s Blin­cy­to across the fin­ish line.

Mitchell Fin­er

TCR² al­so worked close­ly with Mitchell Fin­er, an MPM Cap­i­tal ex­ec­u­tive part­ner who has decades of cell ther­a­py man­u­fac­tur­ing ex­pe­ri­ence, in­clud­ing the de­sign of GMP process­es for blue­bird bio and Cell Genesys. Over­all, just un­der half of the 30 com­pa­nies MPM has in­vest­ed in are on­col­o­gy-fo­cused.

So far, TCR²  has raised rough­ly $170 mil­lion from in­vestors, in­clud­ing MPM Cap­i­tal, F2 Ven­tures, Di­men­sions Cap­i­tal, Ar­row­Mark Part­ners, Cathay For­tune Cap­i­tal, Cu­ra­tive Ven­tures, Hill­house Cap­i­tal Group, Mi­rae­As­set Fi­nan­cial Group and Red­mile Group. Pri­or to the IPO, MPM has the biggest hold­ing with a 19.18% stake, and F2 is a run­ner up with a 15.97% stake.

The FDA on Tuesday released a warning letter sent earlier this month to the Mason, OH-based site of Procter & Gamble Manufactura, raising questions about the list of ingredients on the label and in the electronic filing.

The warning says that for P&G’s over-the-counter Vicks Nyquil Severe Hot Remedy Cold and Flu Plus Congestion, there’s a “mismatched” list of active ingredients between the labeling and the electronic listing file. The listing file for the active ingredients did not match the active ingredients in the electronic file.

The Federal Trade Commission has gotten involved in a patent feud over Supernus’ Parkinson’s drug Apokyn, a case the agency said may have ‘‘significant implications” for patients who rely on the drug.

Sage Chemical won the first generic approval for its Apokyn formulation (also known as apomorphine hydrochloride injection) back in 2022. The non-ergoline dopamine agonist is approved to treat Parkinson’s symptoms during “off episodes,” such as difficulty moving, tremors and intense cramping. However, regulators specified that the approval pertained to the generic drug cartridges only, not the injector pen required for administration.