Alumis, taking aim at Bristol Myers, pulls in $259M for TYK2 drug work
06 Mar 2024
Phase 2Drug ApprovalAcquisitionPhase 3
Dive Brief:
Biotechnology startup Alumis on Wednesday raised $259 million in Series C funding to advance a portfolio of oral drugs for autoimmune conditions.
Alumis’ top prospects are so-called TYK2 inhibitorsTYK2 inhibitors, a popular class of medicines being positioned as oral alternatives to widely used injectable biologics. The Food and Drug Administration approved the first of those drugs, Bristol Myers Squibb’s Sotyktu, in 2022 for plaque psoriasis. Alumis claims its lead drug, ESK-001, has the potential to be “best-in-class,” however.
The round is one of the year’s largest and comes at a time when venture funding has been more difficult for startups to secure. The proceeds will help fund a Phase 3 trial in plaque psoriasis, Alumis said. Phase 2 tests in lupus and a type of eye inflammation are underway as well.
Dive Insight:
Alumis, a startup once known as Esker Therapeutics, is one of many young companies trying to make a better TYK2 drugTYK2 drug.
Sotyktu, first TYK2 inhibitorTYK2 inhibitor to come along, proved the approach could be used to effectively treat the skin disease plaque psoriasis. Notably, its approval in 2022 also came without the type of safety warnings associated with so-called JAK inhibitorsJAK inhibitors, a similar group of oral anti-inflammatory medicines.
Since then, there’s been a surge in investments in companies aiming to surpass Sotyktu. Japanese pharmaceutical company Takeda paid $4 billion to acquire an experimental drug developed by Nimbus Therapeutics. Takeda has since presented the data that convinced it to make the deal, and planned a bevy of additional trials.
Nimbus is being joined by companies like Alumis and Sudo Biosciences. All of them argue their drugs are more selective than Sotyktu, and as a result, could be more potent. That hasn’t been definitively proven, and another to make that claim, Ventyx Biosciences, had to redraw its development plans after disappointing study results.
Alumis could soon reveal important data underlying its work, though. The company will present present Phase 2 data from studies in psoriasis at a medical meeting this weekend. It’s also developing a different type of TYK2 blockerTYK2 blocker for neurodegenerative diseases. That drug is in preclinical testing.
The Series C was co-led by existing investor Foresite Capital as well as new backers Samsara BioCapital and venBio Partners. A lengthy list of additional investors, among them Cormorant Asset Management, SR One and Lilly Asia Ventures, also participated.
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