Inobrodib

CellCentric has raised a $120 million Series C round to support a potential accelerated approval in multiple myeloma, the UK biotech exclusively told Endpoints News . The company, more than two decades in the making, will use the funds to see if its p300/CBP inhibitor inobrodib can be an effective medicine for patients who have exhausted all other treatment options for multiple myeloma. A Phase 2/3 trial for potential accelerated approval will begin later this year, CellCentric told Endpoints. CellCentric CEO Will West said the biotech got a “flurry of investor interest” after presenting clinical data in heavily pretreated patients at the annual American Society of Hematology meeting in December. Existing investor RA Capital Management co-led the round with new backer Forbion. Inobrodib targets the twin proteins p300 and CBP. Other startups are also exploring that approach in different tumors, including Pathos AI, which is testing pocenbrodib in certain forms of prostate cancer. Pathos raised $365 million earlier this month. Tolremo Therapeutics is also in the clinic for solid tumors. “It’s good because it means the profile of targeting P300/CBP is raising,” West told Endpoints. “We just have substantially more clinical data than anyone else, and we are now focused on getting into registration studies.” While many other drug developers are focusing on more complex cell therapies, bispecific antibodies and antibody-drug conjugates for multiple myeloma, CellCentric believes a pill will be easier for patients, and that there’s need for more therapies. “At the moment, if you get a cell therapy and then one of the bispecific antibodies or an ADC, you still eventually relapse, and then there’s really nothing,” West said. It will also try the drug in combination: In the coming weeks, CellCentric plans to begin dosing patients in a study pairing inobrodib with approved bispecifics, and the company expects initial proof-of-concept data later this year, West said. That combination data could inform the biotech’s next financing steps. “Our goal is to see inobrodib advanced as fast and as effectively as possible,” West said. “If that means further fundraising, private or public, next year, or doing a strategic partnership or exiting, we’ll see.” The company will announce a chief business and finance officer based in the US in the coming weeks, West said. CellCentric opened a Boston-area office late last month and is “just shy” of 50 employees, he said. With the new funds, CellCentric will also explore studies of inobrodib as a maintenance therapy. And next summer, the biotech will begin a Phase 3 trial testing the drug in combination with pomalidomide and dexamethasone. All of that work builds upon a long journey for CellCentric. The company formed in 2004 around work on epigenetics at the University of Cambridge. West, who has been CEO since the company’s founding, previously told Endpoints that for a while, CellCentric viewed itself as a “knowledge company” that helped other groups like Takeda explore epigenetics and cellular reprogramming. Inobrodib, formerly known as CCS1477, has since become the company’s focus. In 2018, the family office Morningside Venture Investments helped fund the early exploration of the drug with a $26 million bet . In the past few years, Pfizer Ventures and RA Capital have also chipped in. “Biology is not linear, and you need incredible tenacity if you really are going to be first in class and really do something pioneering. That’s what we’ve proven,” West said. “The second thing is, we’ve done a lot of stuff that didn’t work, and you just have to keep going. It’s that tenacity that really then leads to then having something that really is transformational, we believe.”

Fresh off a promising mid-stage readout in multiple myeloma (MM), CellCentric raised a $120-million series C on Monday to run a broad clinical programme of lead candidate inobrodib, a potentially first-in-class oral p300/CBP inhibitor.The financing was co-led by RA Capital Management and new investor Forbion. Avego Bioscience Capital also participated in the round, as did BrightEdge, the American Cancer Society’s venture capital and impact investment arm. The fresh capital comes about five months after CellCentric presented data from a Phase I/II study at last year's American Society of Hematology (ASH) meeting. When given in combination with pomalidomide and dexamethasone, inobrodib led to a 75% overall response rate and a median duration of response of 9.7 months in nine patients with relapsed or refractory MM. According to Jasper Bos, a general partner at Forbion, inobrodib "has demonstrated promising efficacy and a manageable safety profile in early clinical trials. We are enthusiastic about supporting CellCentric as it advances inobrodib into registration studies, aiming to transform multiple myeloma treatment across various stages of the disease." CellCentric already has a Phase IIa dose optimisation study of inobrodib underway and plans to leverage the new funds to launch several new trials, including a Phase II/III study in heavily pretreated patients with MM designed to support accelerated approval. The drugmaker also expects to start multiple trials this quarter evaluating inobrodib as a maintenance treatment, as well as in combination with bispecific antibodies. A Phase III programme for the p300/CBP inhibitor, which has fast track designation from the FDA, is slated to begin mid-2026. Prior to the C round, CellCentric had raised at least $119 million in funding, including $35 million from RA Capital last year, as well as a $25-million investment from Pfizer in 2023.Morningside Venture Investments fronted $26 million in 2018, then committed an additional $33 million in 2020.