Daniel Nomura, Vicinitas Therapeutics founder

'Tip of the ice­berg': No­var­tis-part­nered UC Berke­ley lab churns out a start­up to tack­le pro­tein sta­bi­liza­tion

For the past decade, Daniel No­mu­ra’s lab at UC Berke­ley has been work­ing to find chem­i­cal ap­proach­es to drug the so-called “un­drug­gable,” and with the help of No­var­tis’ re­search arm for the past five years, he has built out the foun­da­tion for a new biotech in the pro­tein sta­bi­liza­tion field.

Vicini­tas Ther­a­peu­tics joins a small field of up­starts look­ing to flip the switch and fo­cus on sta­bi­liz­ing cer­tain pro­teins, rather than de­grad­ing them. Cys­tic fi­bro­sis is a good ex­am­ple of a dis­ease that could ben­e­fit from small mol­e­cules aimed at sta­bi­liz­ing the CFTR pro­tein, which is what No­mu­ra’s lab did in a re­cent Na­ture Chem­i­cal Bi­ol­o­gy pa­per, serv­ing as the ba­sis for Vicini­tas.

The biotech emerged Thurs­day morn­ing with $65 mil­lion in Se­ries A fi­nanc­ing, near­ly the same sized round that its main com­peti­tor in the sta­bi­liza­tion field, the apt­ly named Sta­blix Ther­a­peu­tics, launched with last June. A coastal chal­lenge could be brew­ing as the South San Fran­cis­co biotech thinks it can move in­to the dri­ver’s seat in a race against its Co­lum­bia Uni­ver­si­ty peer. Vicini­tas has named its plat­form the Deu­biq­ui­ti­nase Tar­get­ing Chimera, or DUB­TAC, where­as Sta­blix is call­ing its drugs RESTORACs.

“We are cer­tain­ly the first ones to pub­lish on a ful­ly syn­thet­ic small mol­e­cule-based DUB­TAC plat­form for tar­get­ed pro­tein sta­bi­liza­tion, and I be­lieve that re­al­ly puts us in a strong po­si­tion to be­come the lead­ing com­pa­ny in the space,” No­mu­ra told End­points News.

The pro­fes­sor serves as founder, sci­en­tif­ic ad­vi­sor to and board mem­ber of Vicini­tas, which is cur­rent­ly search­ing for a CEO af­ter hav­ing land­ed CSO Daniel Mar­quess, who pre­vi­ous­ly served in the same po­si­tion at Uni­ty Biotech­nol­o­gy.

In the pa­per, No­mu­ra’s lab was able to link its “deu­biq­ui­ti­nase re­cruiter on to the Ver­tex drug lumacaftor that helps to act as a chem­i­cal chap­er­one for CFTR to sub­se­quent­ly deu­biq­ui­ti­nate and sta­bi­lize the lev­els of the CFTR pro­tein, and al­so im­prove chlo­ride chan­nel func­tion in cys­tic fi­bro­sis cells,” the pro­fes­sor said. The two lead co-au­thors on the pa­per are sci­en­tists at the biotech, he added.

Com­pared to the degra­da­tion field’s PRO­TACs, No­mu­ra char­ac­ter­ized Vicini­tas’ DUB­TACs as “es­sen­tial­ly the op­po­site.” In a nod to the biotech’s name, he said the com­pa­ny’s small mol­e­cules “in­duce the prox­im­i­ty, or vicin­i­ty, of two pro­teins that usu­al­ly don’t in­ter­act in this case to sta­bi­lize the lev­els of aber­rant­ly de­grad­ed pro­teins.”

While cys­tic fi­bro­sis was one of the fo­cus­es of the lab’s pa­per, the lung and di­ges­tive dis­ease is not the on­ly area Vicini­tas will pur­sue. CF will serve as a “test­bed” for broad­en­ing the plat­form’s reach, which could go in­to can­cer, mono­genic dis­eases and hap­loin­suf­fi­cien­cy dis­eases, No­mu­ra said. The lat­ter in­volves hav­ing “on­ly one good copy of a gene, re­sult­ing in half the lev­el of the pro­tein and,” the pro­fes­sor ex­plained, “by slow­ing down the nat­ur­al turnover rate of that pro­tein, you can po­ten­tial­ly in­crease the lev­el of that pro­tein and sub­se­quent­ly con­fer ther­a­peu­tic ben­e­fit.”

Deer­field Man­age­ment and a16z led the Se­ries A, with ad­di­tion­al back­ing from Droia Ven­tures, GV, The Mark Foun­da­tion for Can­cer Re­search and the Berke­ley Cat­a­lyst Fund. The biotech holds the ex­clu­sive li­cense to the work from No­mu­ra’s lab in con­junc­tion with No­var­tis. Deer­field is al­so a backer of an­oth­er No­mu­ra-found­ed biotech, Fron­tier Med­i­cines, a pro­tein degra­da­tion start­up al­lied with Ab­b­Vie.

Aside from Vicini­tas, No­mu­ra will con­tin­ue work­ing with the No­var­tis In­sti­tutes for Bio­Med­ical Re­search in a sec­ond re­search col­lab­o­ra­tion, al­so un­veiled Thurs­day. He will be part of a team that in­cludes fel­low UC Berke­ley pro­fes­sors Dean Toste, Thomas Mai­mone, Ziyang Zhang, and James Olz­mann. The aim of the new No­var­tis-Berke­ley Trans­la­tion­al Chem­i­cal Bi­ol­o­gy In­sti­tute is to find small mol­e­cule com­pounds that could lay the ground­work for new prox­im­i­ty-based ther­a­peu­tics.

“This whole space of in­duced prox­im­i­ty, we’re re­al­ly just at the tip of the ice­berg of the full po­ten­tial of that gen­er­al ap­proach, be­yond degra­da­tion and sta­bi­liza­tion,” No­mu­ra said.

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.