Tubulin inhibitors(Qingdao University)

Samsung Bioepis is moving beyond its biosimilar bread-and-butter, thanks to a licensing deal with Phrontline Biopharma that adds two antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) to the Korean firm's oncology portfolio. The partners will co-develop TJ108, a dual-payload ADC directed against EGFR and HER3 that delivers both a topoisomerase-1 inhibitor (TOP1i) and a tubulin inhibitor, as well as a second, yet-to-be-named ADC. Samsung Bioepis will also exclusively license a TOP1i payload (see – Vital Signs: The next generation of ADCs, bispecifics begin to emerge at AACR).In exchange, China-based Phrontline will receive an upfront payment and is eligible for development and regulatory milestones. Financial details were not disclosed.The agreement comes soon after Samsung Bioepis split with Samsung Biologics to keep the biosimilar and contract development and manufacturing organisation (CDMO) businesses separate, with the aim of easing potential conflicts of interest between the two divisions. Samsung Biologics, the CDMO unit, has since scored a $1.3-billion manufacturing contract with a "large-sized" pharmaceutical partner based in the US.At the time of the split, Samsung Bioepis said it planned to expand into new drug development through both R&D and M&A. According to its website, the company's only disclosed products in development are two biosimilars — one that references Amgen's bone disease drug Prolia/Xgeva (denosumab), and another for Merck & Co.'s blockbuster PD-1 inhibitor, Keytruda (pembrolizumab).

A French team of researchers and biopharma executives is taking the wraps off a large Series A round that will help get its lead antibody-drug conjugate program into its first human trials. Adcytherix unveiled its €104 million ($121 million) financing on Thursday, with a plan to get ADCX-020 into the clinic before the end of the year. The company is led by CEO Jack Elands, who previously ran another ADC startup called Emergence Therapeutics before selling it to Eli Lilly in 2023 for an estimated $470 million . Elands told Endpoints News in an interview that Emergence investors were interested in backing him to launch another company. “In fact, it was a mutual interest,” he said. Adcytherix isn’t disclosing the exact specifics of ADCX-020 or what kind of cancer it’s designed to treat. Elands did say that ADCX-020 will be an exatecan-based ADC, and there aren’t currently any approved ADCs that use exatecan as a payload. Exatecan is more potent than the payloads used in approved antibody-drug conjugates like Pfizer’s Padcev and AstraZeneca’s Enhertu and, in theory, it should develop less resistance to cancer cells. Hello Jamie Hartman , Endpoints is fielding its next Pulse Poll — a one-minute check-in on how artificial intelligence is reshaping biopharma. Results are confidential and will feed into our coverage of AI's real-world impact. Hello Jamie Hartman , Endpoints is fielding its next Pulse Poll — a one-minute check-in on how artificial intelligence is reshaping biopharma. Results are confidential and will feed into our coverage of AI's real-world impact. Hello Jamie Hartman , Endpoints is fielding its next Pulse Poll — a one-minute check-in on how artificial intelligence is reshaping biopharma. Results are confidential and will feed into our coverage of AI's real-world impact. Hello Jamie Hartman , Endpoints is fielding its next Pulse Poll — a one-minute check-in on how artificial intelligence is reshaping biopharma. Results are confidential and will feed into our coverage of AI's real-world impact. Hello Jamie Hartman , Endpoints is fielding its next Pulse Poll — a one-minute check-in on how artificial intelligence is reshaping biopharma. Results are confidential and will feed into our coverage of AI's real-world impact. Hello Jamie Hartman , Endpoints is fielding its next Pulse Poll — a one-minute check-in on how artificial intelligence is reshaping biopharma. Results are confidential and will feed into our coverage of AI's real-world impact. Hello Jamie Hartman , Endpoints is fielding its next Pulse Poll — a one-minute check-in on how artificial intelligence is reshaping biopharma. Results are confidential and will feed into our coverage of AI's real-world impact. Hello Jamie Hartman , Endpoints is fielding its next Pulse Poll — a one-minute check-in on how artificial intelligence is reshaping biopharma. Results are confidential and will feed into our coverage of AI's real-world impact. But that’s a double-edged sword, Elands said, because more potency could lead to more side effects. Adcytherix believes it’s found the sweet spot, and he said the company has preclinical data showing neutropenia — a common side effect of cancer treatment involving low white blood cell counts — to be “clinically irrelevant.” “You do need to make sure that your ADC has a very stable linker so that you don’t lose the payload too early, because that contributes to unwanted side effects and tox effects that can be prevented,” Elands said. Big investments in ADCs have slowed this year after 11 nine-figure funding rounds in 2024, according to an Endpoints tally. Adcytherix’s Series A represents just the fourth ADC-related financing this year, though it is the second this week after Tubulis pulled in $361 million on Wednesday. Regina Hodits, a managing director at Angelini Ventures — which co-led the Series A — said ADC companies become successful these days by picking the right molecules and putting together a team that can develop them quickly. “If you actually look at the resistance that’s being developed, it takes less than a year for people that had a really good response to Enhertu to develop resistance against the mechanism,” Hodits said. “This is where the excitement” for Adcytherix comes from. Outside of ADCX-020, Adcytherix is working to expand to other ADCs with new payloads. Most of those projects aren’t being disclosed yet, but Elands said they are working on at least one tubulin inhibitor-based ADC, which is a more common payload with several approvals, including Enhertu. Adcytherix was founded in April 2024 with a €30 million seed round. Thursday’s Series A was led by Bpifrance and co-led by Kurma Partners, Andera Partners and Angelini Ventures, alongside a syndicate that includes Surveyor Capital and aMoon.