Peptide biotech gets renewed support from Bristol Myers, others to bankroll multiple oncology clinical programs

31 May 2022
endpts.com
Orphan DrugFast TrackASCO
The first batch of financing lasted about five years, but this time around, Sapience Therapeutics thinks its new funding round will have runway for less than two years, until the back half of 2023. That’s because the Harrison, NY biotech has clinical programs to fund. So, NexPoint is joining existing backers Bristol Myers Squibb, Eshelman Ventures and Kingdon Capital in supplying $41 million for a Series B. Sapience is going after so-called undruggable targets in cancer by developing small peptides that target protein-protein interactions in the cytoplasm and nucleus. Specifically, Sapience thinks it has the science and tech to go after targets that have been known for decades as “molecular underpinnings” driving cancer but have been unattainable for successful treatments, founder and CEO Barry Kappel told Endpoints News. The seven-year-old biotech originally got started via a licensing pact with Columbia University, but the asset involved ended up being a “precursor to the precursor to ST101,” which is Sapience’s lead program and developed in-house, Kappel said. The drug is currently in the second portion of a Phase I/II study for patients with advanced solid tumors. Phase I data will be presented at ASCO this weekend. ST101 received an orphan drug tag earlier this month for the treatment of advanced melanoma, and the drug has racked up multiple fast track designations for advanced cutaneous melanoma and recurrent glioblastoma multiforme. The financing will bankroll the ST101 study, as well as a 2023 Phase 1 trial of ST316 and a 2024 clinical entry for the biotech’s third cancer drug. Funds will also go toward expanding the biotech’s C-suite and clinical teams, with a current total headcount of 16, Kappel said. Sapience has named a few new members to its executive bench this year, including a CFO, general counsel and VP of regulatory affairs. That second asset, ST316, goes after beta catenin, part of the well-known WNT signaling pathway. “We have a unique approach that we can target part of that complex that is really necessary required for the pathologic activity, but is not required for the physiological activity so we can leave in physiologic beta catenin activities. We don’t expect to see any of the off target side effects that have plagued other WNT or beta catenin targeted programs,” Kappel said of ST316. Sapience’s Series B includes a $12.5 bridge financing that NexPoint gave the biotech in December 2021, Kappel said. “As the [autumn] continued to fall apart for biotech, they stuck with us and kept digging in,” Kappel said of NexPoint. The biotech met the NexPoint team last summer, he said. The financing follows a $14 million round in the summer of 2020 from BMS, shortly after the Big Pharma acquired Sapience’s original investor, Celgene, which contributed to a $22.5 million launch in 2016.
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