David Maizen­berg’s imag­i­na­tion sparked when he came across a mon­o­clon­al an­ti­body from Can­cer Re­search UK’s re­ject pile.

The CD19-tar­get­ing mAb, orig­i­nal­ly dis­cov­ered by Mer­ck Serono, didn’t per­form as well as the or­ga­ni­za­tion hoped against B cell ma­lig­nan­cies. But it could have val­ue, Maizen­berg hy­poth­e­sized, in au­toim­mune dis­ease.

The life sci­ences con­sul­tant and mar­keter en­tered talks with Can­cer Re­search UK in the sum­mer of 2019 about li­cens­ing the can­di­date — and in De­cem­ber, he and Patrick Crutch­er (a for­mer as­so­ciate of Mar­tin Shkre­li) launched Valen­z­aBio to “find a bet­ter home” for for­mer on­col­o­gy can­di­dates in au­toim­mune and in­flam­ma­to­ry in­di­ca­tions.

The com­pa­ny kept qui­et for the most part, un­til burst­ing on­to the scene on Thurs­day with a hefty $70 mil­lion Se­ries A round and plans to take their lead can­di­date — now called VB119 — in­to the clin­ic this quar­ter.

The com­pa­ny is pur­su­ing an OK in mem­bra­nous nephropa­thy, a dis­or­der where the body’s im­mune sys­tem at­tacks the fil­ter­ing mem­branes in the kid­ney. Valen­z­aBio plans on ini­ti­at­ing an open-la­bel Phase Ib/IIa study this quar­ter, as well as sub­mit­ting a clin­i­cal tri­al ap­pli­ca­tion in the UK.

“MN can lead to dis­abling and, in some cas­es, life-threat­en­ing com­pli­ca­tions for pa­tients; and giv­en the lack of any FDA-ap­proved ther­a­pies to­day, VB119 has an op­por­tu­ni­ty to im­pact the lives of pa­tients with this rare dis­ease,” CSO Stephen Thomas said in a state­ment.

Valen­z­aBio’s sec­ond can­di­date, VB421, which it li­censed from Pierre Fab­re in March, is a mAb di­rect­ed to in­sulin-like growth fac­tor 1 re­cep­tor (IGF-1R) in de­vel­op­ment for thy­roid eye dis­ease. It’s de­signed to bind to IGF-1R, which when over­ex­pressed or ac­ti­vat­ed with­in or­bital fi­brob­lasts is be­lieved to have a hand in the pro­gres­sion of TED. That one’s head­ed to the clin­ic in the first half of 2022, Maizen­berg said.

The com­pa­ny de­clined to re­lease the fi­nan­cial terms of ei­ther li­cens­ing deal.

“The com­pa­ny has al­ways been dri­ven by oth­er as­sets,” chief strat­e­gy of­fi­cer William Bonifi­cio said, adding that they’re con­stant­ly look­ing for new things. “We’re drug hunters at our core.”

The Se­ries A was led by Fi­deli­ty Man­age­ment & Re­search Com­pa­ny and Ikar­i­an Cap­i­tal, with help from Sur­vey­or Cap­i­tal, Janus Hen­der­son In­vestors and Opal­eye Man­age­ment. Pierre Fab­re will al­so take an eq­ui­ty stake in the com­pa­ny as part its re­cent li­cense agree­ment.

Cor­rec­tion: The round was led by Fi­deli­ty and Ikar­i­an. 

Otonomy may be shutting down, but the lessons learned there will live on at another biotech working on new treatments for hearing loss.

San Francisco-based Spiral Therapeutics has bought certain assets related to three of Otonomy’s programs, ranging from data, patent rights, and know-how to inventory. That includes data around Otonomy’s twice-failed lead program, OTO-104 (Otividex), a sustained-exposure formulation of dexamethasone.

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.

The government of the United Kingdom is giving out grants to several manufacturers that have a presence in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

The government announced that four companies, including Ipsen, contract manufacturer Pharmaron, DNA manufacturer Touchlight and diagnostic test producer Randox, will receive a total of £277 million ($341.1 million). According to a release from the UK government, this represents the first portion of grants from the Life Sciences Innovative Manufacturing Fund.

A company with public links to Sanofi and Moderna has raised more money to expand its mission of improving diversity and enrollment in clinical trials.

Inato put the word out on Wednesday that it raised $20 million via an A2 round to advance its matching platform between pharma companies and potential clinical trial sites.

Inato CEO Kourosh Davarpanah told Endpoints News that with the $20 million in hand, it will pursue improvements to its diversity offerings, its focus on oncology and data collection.

Boehringer Ingelheim reported human pharma sales of €18.5 billion on Wednesday, led by type 2 diabetes and heart failure drug Jardiance and pulmonary fibrosis med Ofev. Jardiance sales reached €5.8 billion, growing 39% year over year, while Ofev took in €3.2 billion, notching its own 20.6% annual jump.

However, Boehringer is also looking ahead with its pipeline, estimating “In the next seven years the company expects about 20 regulatory approvals in human pharma.”