AltruBio lands up to $225M after shift to immune drug research
21 May 2024
Dive Brief:
Biotechnology startup AltruBio on Tuesday raised a Series B round that could hand it up to $225 million, cashing in again on a decision four years ago to change its development strategy.
Originally known as AbGenomics Holdings, the startup had aimed to develop cancer drugs. But in 2020, it shifted course, swapped out its leadership and rebranded as AltruBio. The company raised $63 million in funding a year later and now has a drug prospect in mid-stage testing for ulcerative colitis.
The funding was led BVF Partners and involved prominent life sciences investors such as RA Capital Management and Cormorant Asset Management. The round comes amid a surge of industry interest in developers of immune disease drugs.
Dive Insight:
Inflammatory disease research has become one of the hottest areas of drug development, spurred on by interest in therapies with the potential to be more precise or more powerful than existing treatments.
This year alone, there have been eight buyouts of immune drug developers, surpassing even oncology M&A, according to BioPharma Dive data. Two of 2023’s largest acquisitions — Roche’s $7.1 billion acquisition of Telavant and Merck & Co.’s $10.8 billion purchase of Prometheus Biosciences — were also for immune disease drugs.
That interest has trickled down to startups. Immune drugmakers Acelyrin, Apogee Therapeutics and Kyverna Therapeutics priced three of the largest initial public offerings since the start of 2023, BioPharma Dive data show. And in the first half of 2024, Mirador Therapeutics, Capstan Therapeutics and Lycia Therapeutics each raised funding rounds exceeding $100 million.
AltruBio is among the beneficiaries of the investment surge. Since rebranding and bringing in former Bayer and Pfizer executive Judy Chou as CEO, the company has secured close to $300 million in funding. The startup also added to its C-suite Jesse Hall, an ex-Amgen executive who’s held positions at two biotech companies since, and Jeroen Grasman, who spent more than a decade at Roche.
“The transition from oncology to immunology has proven to be a strategic and promising shift for AltruBio,” Chou, wrote in an email to BioPharma Dive. While “the capital markets over the past few years have certainly made it more difficult for companies to raise capital,” having a drug in mid-stage testing “has provided us with an advantage,” she added.
Codenamed ALTB-268, that drug is a newer version of a medicine the company had previously brought into human testing and showed early promise treating autoimmune conditions. Unlike the checkpoint inhibitors that spur the immune system against cancer, the drug works by slowing down a type of immune cell. The goal is to restore balance to the immune systems of people with diseases like ulcerative colitis without broadly suppressing the body’s defenses at the same time.
“The heightened interest and substantial funding in this sector underscore the urgent need for innovative solutions to address the unmet medical needs of patients,” said Jake Simson, a partner at RA Capital, in a statement.
The Phase 2a study AltruBio currently has underway in ulcerative colitis should produce results in the first half of next year. The company plans to start a Phase 2b trial that would read out data in 2026.
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