Langer, Ciechanover godfather the latest AI upstart; Ipsen forges $446M AML development pact

18 Oct 2021
endpts.com
Antibody
There’s a new AI player jumping into the drug discovery game. And they have some high-powered scientific advisors in their corner. Tel Aviv-based Quris has built what it calls a “patient-on-a-chip” AI platform that it’s touting as a way to circumvent unreliable animal testing with a more efficient way to judge safety and efficacy. Animal testing, particularly involving mice, has proven a notoriously unreliable way to do preclinical testing — though it is well-established with regulators. “Using a breakthrough way to test drug candidates on miniaturized patients on chips, Quris can demonstrate their safety and efficacy, or lack thereof, through preliminary chip-based clinical trials. This has never been done before, and Quris is charting the path,” marvels Nobel Laureate Aaron Ciechanover, one of the upstart’s science guides. Ciechanover is joined by the ubiquitous Bob Langer, the oft-quoted MIT professor — and billionaire Moderna co-founder — who has somehow found the time to help godfather a multitude of biotechs along the way. The company garnered a $9 million seed round led by Judith Richter and Kobi Richter, with participation from Moshe Yanai and strategic angel investors. There’s been considerable boasting in the AI field in the last few years, which has tended to be dampened by reality. — John Carroll Ipsen is beefing up the oncology segment of its pipeline with a new, $446 million deal with Accent Therapeutics. The Paris-based player has signed off on a worldwide deal package that gives it rights to Accent’s pre-clinical stage METTL3 program for AML. The partners didn’t break out the upfront, but most of these preclinical deals are heavily back-ended with milestones. “We are delighted to partner with Accent to progress the METTL3 program as we continue our expansion into hematologic oncology,” noted Ipsen early development chief Christelle Huguet. — John Carroll One of Centessa’s biotech subs has signed on with Schrödinger for a discovery deal . Orexia Therapeutics is jumping on the computational company’s tech platform in search of therapeutics that can hit the orexin-2 receptor target, a pathway that plays a key role in sleep disorders. This is the first time Schrödinger’s technology will be applied in an orexin agonist setting at scale. Schrödinger gets an unspecified upfront and a package of milestones in the deal. “While prevailing treatment approaches only address the symptoms associated with narcolepsy type 1 (NT1), we believe orexin agonists offer a disruptive approach, with the capacity to address the underlying pathology of the disorder. Orexia’s utilization of OX2R stabilized receptors provides the foundation for R&D which could significantly benefit patients with NT1. We look forward to partnering with Schrödinger to complement the discovery and development work we are conducting at Orexia,” said Saurabh Saha, the CEO at Centessa. — John Carroll Innovent is making noise Monday after a Phase III study for its sintilimab program achieved the primary endpoint. The biotech said the combination of sintilimab and the anti-VEGF antibody bevacizumab demonstrated significant progression-free survival improvement when also combined with chemotherapy, compared to chemotherapy alone. Innovent enrolled patients with EGFR-mutated nonsquamous non-small cell lung cancer that has progressed after treatment with an EGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitor. The biotech is also still waiting for data looking at only a sintilimab and chemo combo to mature. The study will continue, as it did not reach the futility stopping point, Innovent said. — Max Gelman
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