Circle Pharma, Inc.

Boehringer expands oncology pipeline with Tessellate deal. Credit: Sundry Photography via Getty Images. Boehringer Ingelheim has signed a €500m ($572m) agreement with UK-based biotech Tessellate Bio to co-develop targeted cancer therapies for tumours that rely on the alternative lengthening of telomeres (ALT) mechanism – a lesser-known telomere maintenance process that supports the survival of certain hard to treat cancers. Under the terms of the deal, Tessellate Bio will receive an upfront licensing fee, research funding, and technical milestone payments, along with additional success-based development and commercial milestones. The total potential value of the agreement is more than $572m. Tessellate has developed small molecule inhibitors against an undisclosed target that plays a central role in enabling the replication and survival of ALT-positive cancer cells. According to the company, preclinical data shows that blocking this target leads to DNA damage and replication stress, selectively killing tumour cells dependent on the ALT mechanism while sparing healthy cells that do not use this pathway. The collaboration builds on Tessellate’s ongoing work to characterise ALT activity across tumour types, following a research initiative launched in September 2024 with Australian research institutes CMRI and Omico. Tessellate secured €8m in seed funding from BioGeneration Ventures and Forbion when it launched publicly in October 2023. This deal with Boehringer marks Tessellate’s first partnership with a biopharma company. For Boehringer, this deal aligns with its strategic expansion in oncology. Over the last few years, the German pharma company has pursued a series of R&D and licensing agreements to strengthen its cancer portfolio. In October 2024, it partnered with Circle Pharma to co-develop a first-in-class cyclin inhibitor, in a deal worth up to $607m in upfront and milestone payments. That same month, it opened a €60m ($66.8m) research building in Vienna, Austria , focused on advancing novel cancer therapies. Boehringer’s marketed oncology products include Giotrif (afatinib) for EGFR-mutated non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and Vargatef (nintedanib) for specific types of lung cancer. The company is also advancing late-stage assets such as brigimadlin, an MDM2-p53 antagonist in a pivotal clinical trial for rare cancer dedifferentiated liposarcoma (DDLPS). Boehringer is also advancing zongertinib , a tyrosine kinase inhibitor being evaluated as a potential treatment for HER2-mutated NSCLC. GlobalData Strategic Intelligence US Tariffs are shifting - will you react or anticipate? Don’t let policy changes catch you off guard. Stay proactive with real-time data and expert analysis. By GlobalData Learn more about Strategic Intelligence In January 2025, Boehringer signed two further licensing agreements to deepen its pipeline. The first, with Synaffix, grants access to the company’s antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) platform in a deal worth up to $1.3bn , covering multiple undisclosed targets. The second was an extension of a long-standing partnership with Oxford BioTherapeutics, under which Boehringer exercised an option for a fourth novel target. Oxford BioTherapeutics will receive development milestones and royalties, while Boehringer takes over full development and commercial responsibilities.

As interest grows in the ability to leverage certain ringed molecules as drugs, Orbis Medicines has raised €90 million in new funding less than a year since the company unveiled its seed round. Orbis’ goal is to develop oral drugs for biologic targets using what are called macrocycles, which are rings made of the same building blocks as proteins but that are far smaller than typical proteins. The biotech’s focus is blockbuster targets that already have antibody drugs on the market, particularly in chronic diseases where patients might prefer to take a pill regularly rather than getting their treatment via injections or IV. The €90 million Series A was led by New Enterprise Associates. It included other investors such as Eli Lilly, Cormorant Capital, and the Export and Investment Fund of Denmark — a government-backed fund that backs Danish companies — as well as founding investors Novo Holdings and Forbion. While Orbis is still several years away from human studies, macrocycles have garnered renewed interest over the prospect of making small molecule drugs or pills, which are simpler to make and administer, that can go after highly specific targets usually only accessible using antibodies. Newly-minted CEO Morten Døssing said that the company went out after launching publicly to increase its seed round “a little bit.” The biotech announced a €26 million seed round from Forbion and Novo Holdings in February. “There was a significant amount of interest, and then that spurred this discussion, ‘Well, if we are raising, why don’t we just raise for something more substantial?’” said Døssing, who served as executive chair of Orbis’ board for the past three years as a partner at Novo Holdings, the investment arm of Novo Nordisk’s parent foundation. Macrocycles have long been the basis of drugs, including antibiotics and antifungals, but most were based on existing macrocycles found in nature. Startups developing these next-generation macrocyclic drugs are now leveraging newer technologies including high-throughput screening and machine learning to engineer and design different peptide rings. Orbis’ science comes from Sevan Habeshian and Bicycle Therapeutics co-founder Christian Heinis out of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne. It’s also working with another biotech called Vivtex to screen the oral bioavailability of drugs. Orbis is using unnatural amino acids, drawing from a library of some 400 fully synthesized building blocks as opposed to the 20 protein building blocks found in nature. “The chemical diversity is much greater, but in a much smaller footprint,” said Døssing, noting that macrocycles using natural amino acids are typically eight to 12 amino acids in size, meaning they are large and not ideal for oral drugs. He added that Orbis is looking at targets primarily in immunology at this point, but noted that there’s interest in developing oral peptide drugs for cardiometabolic conditions — a category that includes obesity. He pointed to AbbVie’s recent $200 million acquisition of Nimble Therapeutics , a biotech that is likewise developing oral peptide drugs in immunology. Other macrocycle startups include Vilya — its name comes from “The Lord of the Rings,” and it was launched by Nobel Laureate and protein design pioneer David Baker and ARCH Venture Partners — and Circle Pharma, which last year raised a $54 million Series D . Merck last year also signed a small macrocycle deal with Unnatural Products. Orbis plans to use part of its Series A to build out a team in Copenhagen, where the company that also has a team in Switzerland announced a new site in October. Døssing said that Orbis currently has 15 employees but hopes to have around 40 workers by the end of the year.

The funds will support the development of Orbis’ pipeline of next-generation oral macrocycle drugs. Credit: sanjeri via Getty Images. Denmark-based biotech Orbis Medicines has raised €90m ($94m) in a Series A funding round to advance the development of its next-generation orally dosable macrocycle drugs, which the company calls ⁿCycles. The financing was led by New Enterprise Associates (NEA) with participation from new investors, including Eli Lilly, Cormorant, and the Export and Investment Fund of Denmark. The company – which launched in February 2024 with $28m (€26m) in seed funding from Novo Holdings and Forbion – is focused on creating oral alternatives to injectable biologics, particularly for chronic diseases, according to Orbis CEO Morten Graugaard. Orbis aims to address longstanding challenges in developing macrocycles – large ring-like compounds made from amino acids or other building blocks – into oral drugs. These compounds have strong therapeutic potential due to their ability to bind selectively to biological targets such as the immunosuppressant cyclosporine and the antibiotic erythromycin, but have historically faced issues with stability, absorption, and bioavailability. The biotech’s initial focus is on programmes against targets that are already validated by blockbuster biologic drugs to provide oral alternatives for patients who might prefer to take a pill rather than having treatments injected or by intravenous (IV) infusion. In September 2024, Orbis announced a research collaboration with Vivtex to leverage its gastrointestinal robotic interface system (GI-ORIS), a platform designed to assess gut permeability, which is crucial for determining the oral bioavailability of Orbis’ ⁿCycles portfolio. A month later, the company announced a significant expansion of its operations and capabilities by joining Symbion’s new biotech startup hub in Fuglebakken, Copenhagen. The macrocycle space is gaining some momentum across the pharmaceutical industry. MSD is in late-stage clinical development for macrocyclic peptide drug MK-0616 (enlicitide decanoate) targeting PCSK9 in patients with hypercholesterolemia. The candidate, which is currently being investigated in several Phase III studies, is forecast to generate $1.5bn by 2030 if approved, according to GlobalData. GlobalData is the parent company of Pharmaceutical Technology. MSD further displayed its interest in the space by entering a $220m deal with Unnatural Products (UNP), an AI-based biotech developing macrocyclic candidates. Competitors such as Circle Pharma have also made progress, raising $54m in a Series D round in July 2024 and signing a deal with Boehringer Ingelheim in October. “We have a clear strategy for rapid value creation that leverages the unique capabilities of our ⁿGen platform and are excited to advance this important new class of drugs for patients,” said Graugaard in the announcement accompanying the funding.