Tubulis brings fundraising up to €187M for next-gen ADCs

14 Mar 2024
firstwordpharma.com
ADCASCO
As the antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) craze continues, Tubulis raised a €128 million ($138.8 million) series B2 round to start a clinical trial this year for one of its programmes, which are designed to have better durability than currently approved products.
Tubulis’ ADC platform has already attracted interest from large pharma, which went on a dealmaking spree last year for the modality. Bristol Myers Squibb partnered with the German biotech last year to develop ADCs in a deal potentially worth over $1 billion in biobucks (see: Vital Signs: AbbVie zooms past Pfizer into top ADC spot).
The round, which brings Tubulis’ total funding to €187 million, was co-led by EQT Life Sciences and Nextech Invest Ltd. New investors also Frazier Life Sciences and Deep Track Capital also participated, as did existing investors including Andera Partners, BioMedPartners, Fund+, Bayern Kapital (with ScaleUp Fonds Bayern), Evotec, coparion, Seventure Partners, OCCIDENT and High-Tech Gründerfonds.
ADC flexibility
CEO Dominik Schumacher told FirstWord that since the first ADC was approved two decades ago, there’s been a substantial effort to iterate on the modality’s three components of antibody, linker, and payload to make treatments safer and more effective – and he thinks there’s still plenty of room to push the developmental envelope on ADCs so they eventually become a first-line treatment option.
“I'm really excited about the momentum that we have in the ADC space. It clearly underpins the relevance of this format and how important it will also be in the future for the treatment of patients in need,” he said. “We have been from the very first day, making a lot of effort to innovate on all aspects of the ADC: antibodies, linkers, and also payloads. And this, I think, puts us into a very unique position to have a lot of flexibility, but also to continue to push the boundaries of this format.”
Tubulis’ two lead candidates were developed based on a deep knowledge of their targets, Schumacher said. TUB-030 is directed against solid tumour antigen 5T4, and TUB-040 homes in on Napi2b, a well-characterised target often present in ovarian and lung cancers.
“When you design an ADC, you need to really look at the indication and the biology of a target and get educated by that to really understand what the individual need is from a clinical perspective when it comes to resistance mechanisms,” he explained. “At Tubulis, we have been investing heavily into having flexibility to really tailor-make an ADC and thus come with biophysical properties that are optimised for tumour engagement and the delivery of the payload into the tumour microenvironment to really ensure that we get as long as possible durability.”
Both programmes deliver a topoisomerase-I inhibitor payload developed with the company’s Tubetecan platform, but Schumacher highlighted payload innovation as one area of investment with Thursday’s fundraising.
It’s important to have payload choice and flexibility, he said, in part to reduce target independent toxicities. “Our platform has the capability to unlock completely novel payloads,” he added.
According to Schumacher, preclinical studies have shown long durability for both programmes – “now we want to translate that into clinical proof-of-concept,” he added. Tubulis will be presenting some of the preclinical data at the upcoming American Association for Cancer Research annual meeting in April.
The company plans to start a Phase I/IIa trial this year, but hasn’t yet selected which candidate will begin in-human studies first. Additionally, Tubulis will allot some of its new funds to open a US subsidiary.
For more details,please visit the original website
The content of the article does not represent any opinions of Synapse and its affiliated companies. If there is any copyright infringement or error, please contact us, and we will deal with it within 24 hours.
Organizations
Indications
Targets
Drugs
Get started for free today!
Accelerate Strategic R&D decision making with Synapse, PatSnap’s AI-powered Connected Innovation Intelligence Platform Built for Life Sciences Professionals.
Start your data trial now!
Synapse data is also accessible to external entities via APIs or data packages. Leverages most recent intelligence information, enabling fullest potential.