Deals Of The Week: Vaxxas To Help Shape The Next Generation Of Vaccines

Australian/U.S. biotech Vaxxas came out of stealth mode Oct. 8, announcing a deal with Merck & Co. in which the biotech’s proprietary Nanopatch technology will be tested with Merck vaccines as a delivery vehicle offering potential advantages for ease of administration and potency.

Based on technology developed in the lab of Dr. Mark Kendall at Australia’s University of Queensland, Nanopatch, a patch delivery system said to induce robust immune system activation by targeting vaccine to immunological cells just below the patient’s skin surface, may offer Vaxxas a string of licensing deals, including milestone payments and royalties, similar to a biotech offering small- or large-molecule drug candidates to bigger companies.

“As a vaccine-delivery mode, Nanopatch is capable of delivering a very potent immunogenic response that in some respects is akin to what you’d see in using an adjuvant. We call it a physical adjuvant,” Vaxxas CEO David Hoey told Deals of the Week. “Even though our business model is to partner with companies that are producing vaccines, we believe that use of the patch actually can provide a lot more than simply a delivery vehicle can by making vaccines more potent and perhaps opening new windows for use of vaccines in development.”

Merck and Vaxxas are not disclosing which vaccine will be tested with the technology. The agreement calls for Merck to make an undisclosed upfront payment and R&D funding and then pay potential development and approval milestones plus royalties on commercial sales for a vaccine which Vaxxas will test with the Nanopatch system. Merck gets an option to an exclusive license to produce a vaccine using Nanopatch, meaning that Vaxxas will not partner its technology with another company selling or developing a vaccine for the same indication.

The pharma also gets the option to expand the agreement to two additional vaccine types, although Hoey said exclusivity for additional indications will have to be negotiated between the two companies. “The structure of the initial vaccine candidate agreement is exclusive and has been defined, and the subsequent vaccine candidates have the potential to be exclusive but have not been defined yet,” he said. “At present, we have a landscape of opportunity minus the vaccine field that we’ve licensed under this arrangement with Merck.”

While R&D will continue in Australia at Kendall’s labs, Vaxxas also has opened an 18-person office in Cambridge, Mass., which  will focus on business development. The Boston area was chosen because it offers numerous potential licensing partners for the Nanopatch technology, added Hoey, previously the VP of business development at PathoGenetix.

Vaxxas raised a $15 million Australian (about $16 million) Series A in August 2011 backed by Australian venture capital firms OneVentures and Brandon Capital, U.S. VC firm HealthCare Ventures LLC and an Australian non-profit, Medical Research Commercialisation Fund. It was the largest venture round for an Australian company since anti-infectives biotech Avexa raised $12 million Australian in 2004.

Nanopatch is a stamp-sized device designed for painless vaccination over a period of two minutes. Providing direct access to immune cells in the skin, the self-administered, needle-free vaccine delivery system contains a nano-projection array patch to which the drug is dry-coated, so there is no need for refrigeration. It was tested in animals to deliver a flu vaccine at 1/150 the dose compared with syringe administration and also has been evaluated for vaccines for human papillomavirus, human simplex virus, Chikungunya disease and West Nile virus.

The patches are produced in the same facilities that manufacture chips for cell phones and computers, Hoey said. They are coated with projections a micron in length using a high-density array that can apply thousands to tens of thousands of projections to a single patch. A dry, needle-free delivery system, Hoey said he is confident the technology can work with many different companies’ vaccines without great formulation challenges.

“Most vaccines today are derived as liquids because needles and syringes are the predominant delivery method, however, the work that has been done by Kendall shows that by a pretty standard set of steps you can prepare a vaccine to be deposited and dried down on a patch,” he explained. “There’s a series of excipients that can be added to existing vaccines to make them adaptable in a format suitable for use in conjunction with the patch. So there’s no specific formulation required of the vaccine provider.”

In searching for partners, Vaxxas is not prioritizing certain indications but trying to position itself by sharing data with vaccine makers showing the technology’s potential to increase vaccine potency and offer the possibility of easier dosing, possibly even self-administration. And Vaxxas will not compete with its partners, Hoey said; the firm has no plans to develop its own vaccines using the Nanopatch technology.

Elsewhere, it was a busy week in biopharma deal-making, as we detail in our latest edition of  …

AstraZeneca/Ardelyx: In its first deal under new CEO Pascal Soriot, AstraZeneca is licensing a Phase IIb-ready kidney drug from privately held Ardelyx. Announced Oct. 7, the deal brings AstraZeneca worldwide rights to oral NHE sodium transport inhibitor RDX5791, as well as other compounds in Ardelyx’s NHE3 inhibitor program. The Fremont, Calif.-based biotech receives an upfront payment of $35 million and can earn up to $237.5 million in development and commercial milestones, along with potential double-digit royalties on product sales. NHE3 is sodium-hydrogen antiporter 3, a protein essential to absorption of sodium by the intestines. The two companies believe these compounds can address end-stage renal disease, chronic kidney disease and other disorders related to sodium and fluid overload. Ardelyx has evaluated ‘5791 in a Phase IIa trial in constipation-predominant irritable bowel syndrome as well as a pair of Phase I studies in healthy subjects to determine the compound’s ability to divert sodium absorption from the gastrointestinal tract. The deal gives Ardelyx an option to co-promote ‘5791 in the U.S. AstraZeneca will assume development costs for the drug, while the biotech will conduct Phase IIb studies. - Joseph Haas

Roche/Inception: A drug-hunting venture borne out of the Bristol-Myers Squibb/Amira Pharmaceuticals buyout in 2011 has resulted in a new opportunity for Roche. Under a novel collaboration structure involving big pharma, venture capital and biotech, Inception Science will create a third company – called Inception 3 – to discover and develop small molecule drug candidates for sensorineural hearing loss based on technology licensed from Stanford University. Roche, which will fund Inception 3’s work with milestone-based R&D payments, will hold an option to acquire the program upon the filing of the first IND based on the Stanford technology. Inception’s backer Versant Ventures, meanwhile, will provide the equity financing for the new company, under an agreement announced Oct. 10. Inception, which consists of two current small biotechs (Inception 1 and Inception 2) focused on neurology and oncology, arose from assets spun out by Bristol after it acquired Amira for $325 million upfront in July 2011. Bristol’s focus was on idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis candidate AM152, and it spun out much of Amira’s remaining intellectual property into Inception, backed by Versant and led by former Amira CEO Peppi Prasit, known around the biopharma industry for his “drug-hunting” acumen. The various parties are not disclosing any financial details about the collaboration nor providing a timeline to the potential IND filing at FDA. However, Clare Ozawa, chief business officer at Inception and a former officer at Versant, said the combined capabilities of Inception and Roche should result in rapid progress toward a clinical candidate. “Because we’re combining capabilities across both Roche and Inception, we think we have the fastest ability possible to get to IND stage as quickly as possible,” she said in an interview. - JAH

GlaxoSmithKline/Aeras: The joint development of a tuberculosis vaccine, expected to be of use in addition to BCG vaccine to prevent pulmonary TB, is the aim of a collaboration also announced Oct. 10 between GlaxoSmithKline and Aeras Global TB Vaccine Foundation, the Rockville, Md.-based non-profit TB vaccine development organization. BCG vaccine prevents some forms of TB in infants, but does not prevent pulmonary TB, which accounts for the majority of infections and deaths among adolescents and adults. A new TB antigen, M72, a fusion protein which is compatible with adjuvant containing Agenus Inc.’s QS-21 Stimulon adjuvant, has been developed by GSK, and found in initial clinical trials to induce an immune response and offer an acceptable safety profile. GSK and Aeras have agreed to each provide resources in order for a Phase IIb clinical study to be conducted in Kenya, India and South Africa next year, in healthy adults aged between 18 and 50. Aeras is supporting the development of half a dozen TB vaccine candidates, the most advanced of which is Oxford University’s MVA85A, a candidate vaccine using a modified vaccinia virus as a vaccine delivery system and two other candidates initially developed by Crucell (now Johnson & Johnson) and Sanofi. Aeras is funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and other private foundations and governments. - John Davis

UCB/Harvard University: In the third research collaboration to be set up under an alliance forged in 2011, the Belgian mid-sized pharma UCB is to work with Harvard University researchers on exploiting the human intestinal microbiome for therapeutic molecules. The microbiome comprises the 100 trillion bacteria found in each person’s gastrointestinal tract. These bacteria influence the well-being of individuals and their immune systems, and UCB will provide up to $4.5 million to fund the microbiome-related research of three professors of immunology at Harvard: Christophe Benoist, Dennis Kasper and Diane Mathis. They will systematically mine and classify any new species they find in the microbiome, evaluate the impact of the microbiome on the immune system, and look for new immune-modulating molecules with potential therapeutic applications, UCB announced Oct. 10. Several companies, including VC-backed start-ups, already are looking to exploit the microbiome to develop new therapies. In total, UCB expects to spend $6 million in a multi-year agreement to fund specific research projects at Harvard in the fields of central nervous system disorders and immunology. The first project funded was with Prof. Gokhan Hotamisligil, to identify antibodies against an undisclosed target in metabolic diseases. The second, concluded in June 2012, was with cell biology professor Junying Yuan, who was to develop small molecules which induce autophagy. This is the process in which cells ingest intracellular components and offers potential in the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases. - JD

Sanofi/Massachusetts General Hospital: Sanofi is expanding its presence in the Boston research community through a translational medicine collaboration with Massachusetts General Hospital. MGH will work with Sanofi’s oncology division on two preclinical molecules that were discovered in Sanofi’s labs. The teams will include scientists from both organizations and will be “highly collaborative.” Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, but it will encompass a two-year period during which the compounds are expected to enter the clinic. The deal terms are flexible enough that other molecules may be added to the collaboration in the future and the timeframe of the collaboration may be extended. The focus of the collaboration will be on translational medicine solutions in oncology. “Sanofi Oncology takes a dedicated and integrated translational medicine approach by understanding the problems that doctors and patients are facing, both from the perspective of a pharmaceutical company and that of a diagnostic company,” said Donald Bergstrom, head of translational and experimental medicine at Sanofi Oncology. Bergstrom added that finding biomarkers will be a key part of the collaboration. The researchers will be focusing on which patient groups will benefit best from the drugs being developed and how to design the clinical program to achieve successful results. - Lisa LaMotta

Roche/Lilly/Washington University: Roche and Eli Lilly will see their investigational drugs tested in a large-scale Alzheimer’s disease trial run by Washington University in St. Louis. Roche’s amyloid beta antibody gantenerumab and Lilly’s solanezumab have been chosen by the university’s School of Medicine for testing in a clinical trial to study if the drugs can prevent the loss of cognitive function in people with inherited mutations that cause early-onset Alzheimer’s disease, the university announced Oct. 10. A third drug, a beta secretase inhibitor also developed by Lilly, is under consideration as well. The trial, expected to begin in early 2013, will be conducted by the university's  Dominantly Inherited Alzheimer’s Network Trials Unit , which is funded in part by NIH, the Alzheimer’s Association, and the DIAN Pharma Consortium composed of 10 pharmaceutical companies. The Roche and Lilly drugs were selected from more than a dozen nominations, with each offering a unique approach to counter the effects of amyloid beta, which builds up in the brains of patients with Alzheimer’s disease. All three drugs have been tested in earlier clinical trials to evaluate safety and efficacy. Gantenerumab is in a Phase III trial testing the drug in early-stage Alzheimer’s patients who have not yet experienced symptoms of dementia. Solanezumab has been making headlines recently; it failed in two high-profile Phase III trials in patients with Alzheimer’s disease, but did show signs of efficacy for slowing cognitive decline in a secondary analysis of pooled data. Roche and Lilly will make the treatments available at no cost and provide supporting grants. The Alzheimer’s Association provided a $4.2 million grant. The trial will enroll 160 people with inherited mutations for Alzheimer’s at a point when they would be within 10 to 15 years of the anticipated age when symptoms of cognitive decline and dementia would appear. An additional 80 participants who did not inherit the mutations also will be monitored. - Jessica Merrill

MedImmune/Cancer Research Institute/Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research: MedImmune, the biologics arm of AstraZeneca, has set up a collaboration with two non-profit research organizations, the Cancer Research Institute and the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research, to collaborate on clinical trials to test combinations of three novel monoclonal antibodies from MedImmune’s pipeline. The partners also said they are open to including promising non-MedImmune novel compounds in the trials. The agreement, announced Oct. 9, calls for Ludwig and CRI, with input from MedImmune, to conduct the trials using yet-to-be determined combinations of the three compounds, and/or other compounds the partners are working on, or other potential partners might offer up. One of the compounds is tremelimumab, which Pfizer gave up on several years ago and which belongs to the same class as Bristol’s successful melanoma treatment Yervoy (ipilimumab), but MedImmune and its collaborators insist that the problem with tremelimumab was due to the clinical trial design, not the compound itself. CRI’s Cancer Vaccine Acceleration Fund, a two-year-old venture philanthropy group set up to invest in and facilitate innovative cancer immunotherapy trials, is funding the trials. MedImmune is supplying the drugs and, depending on results of the clinical trials, plans to commercialize them and make milestone payments to its backers. The biotech also is continuing to develop the compounds separately, based on its original plans. - Wendy Diller

Picture credit: Nano-structure geometry

Financings of the Fortnight's Gut Check

Has the signal-to-noise ratio of the Obamacare decision already blown out your transistors? Are you sick of “SCOTUS,” which sounds like a region where half the population wouldn’t want to get kicked?

FOTF has a suggestion: Dive into the microbiome, one of the most fascinating ongoing scientific revelations of our lifetimes. Anyone who, as a kid, loved Ray Bradbury’s creepy short story “Fever Dream,” in which a deliriously ill child becomes bit by bit something other than himself, immediately grasps the existential import of the microbiome research: We might need to rethink what it means to be human, because most of the genetic material we’re carrying around isn’t actually ours. (Wait a second, am I typing this, or is it the microbes?)

Lofty questions, indeed; we’re also pondering more practical ones, such as whether the nascent knowledge of our bugs and ourselves can be turned into tests, drugs and other products that improve our health. Only a few investors have made that bet so far.

The latest group is Flagship Ventures, which recently discussed with our “Pink Sheet” colleagues a few details of its under-the-radar start-up Seres Health. Homegrown and fully funded by Flagship, Seres is aiming for what Flagship partner David Berry calls “a new class of drugs,” neither small molecule nor biologic, and why not: If the microbiome has us reconsidering our identities, couldn’t it also lead to new categories of therapeutics?

We’ll have to reserve judgment; Berry wouldn’t say much more about Seres’ activities, although he was eager to discuss the implications of fecal transplantation, a topic that, let’s just say, doesn’t go over well at dinner parties.

You can read more about Seres here, and to hear more from investors about the promises and cautions of translating the microbiome into therapeutic products, stay tuned for the next Capital Matters column in START-UP. Meanwhile, FOTF will be off for the 4th of July week, refreshing itself in the mountains, about as far from the Washington, DC, punditry and sophistry as possible. Just us and our microbes under the stars.

Pitch your tent, kick off your boot and crack open your yogurt, we're lighting the fire under another edition of...

Tesaro: With its $81 million debut June 28, the maker of drugs for cancer and chemo-related nausea became the first life science firm to price an IPO in nearly two months. Tesaro sold 6 million shares at $13.50 a piece, which nets the company $75 million after fees. Tesaro is run by the top executives of MGI Pharma, who formed the company two years after Eisai bought MGI in 2008. Launched in 2010, the firm has been on an IPO fast-track from day one, raising $120 million in two rounds by the end of March 2012. By far the largest shareholder is New Enterprise Associates, which led the Series A with the founders, who told NEA they wanted to create “a new MGI.” Before the IPO, the mega-venture firm owned 50% of the company and, according to regulatory filings, it is one of at least three venture insiders to buy shares at the IPO. Other major shareholders’ pre-IPO shares included InterWest Partners (13%), Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (9.5%) and Tesaro CEO Lonnie Moulder (5%). As much as 1.86 million shares were set aside for insiders, which continues a common theme for biotech IPOs, although the insiders’ percentage of the total is modest compared to other IPOs this year. Underwriters led by Citigroup and Morgan Stanley have the option to sell up to 900,000 more shares. – Alex Lash

Omeros: Speaking of biotech IPOs, the firm that cracked the ice of The Great Recession has raised $30 million on the public markets. The firm sold 2.9 million shares at $10.25 a piece June 27, netting the firm $28 million after fees, and underwriters led by Cowen & Co. and Deutsche Bank can sell up to $4.5 million worth of shares in an overallotment. Omeros has two programs in Phase III, both low-dose combinations of generic drugs to reduce pain and inflammation that occurs during and after surgery. The first is for use during arthroscopic joint surgery, the second for use during ophthalmological procedures. With its October 2009 IPO that raised $68 million, despite a lawsuit brought by its former CFO, Omeros was the first “pure-play” biotech to debut in a year and a half. Since that debut, the Seattle company has raised $25 million in an unusual deal that combined $20 million from Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen’s Vulcan Capital and $5 million from a Washington State development grant to support Omeros’ G-protein-coupled-receptor program in exchange for future royalties that might stem from the program. – A.L.

Neviah Genomics: The corporate venture arm of Germany’s Merck Serono is collaborating with Compugen to establish a new company, Neviah Genomics, which will discover, develop and market novel biomarkers for drug toxicity. Announced June 25, the Neviah collaboration is the first investment under Merck Serono Ventures’ Israel Bioincubator program, established in 2011 with initial funding of €10 million over seven years. MSV Head Roel Bulthuis told “The Pink Sheet” the incubator initially will invest in eight to 10 seed projects, but that doesn’t mean the Neviah investment necessarily equals one-eighth or one-tenth of the €10 million total. “We believe we’ve put Neviah in a good position to execute on its business plan and potentially over time access other sources of capital,” he said. Both MSV and Compugen will be shareholders in Neviah, and Compugen will earn royalties from product sales. Compugen, a Tel Aviv biotech with preclinical biologics, will bring its predictive discovery technologies to the partnership. The goal is for Neviah to provide both software and a kit to let biopharma companies evaluate their own candidates for drug-induced toxicity. The partners hope Neviah can produce a marketable product within a few years. Like all Israel Bioincubator Fund investments, Neviah will be headquartered in Merck Serono’s new state-of-the-art Interlab facility in Yavne, Israel. – Joseph Haas

Aegerion Pharmaceuticals: Another public biotech in the post-recession class tapped the markets to raise cash this past fortnight. Aegerion on June 14 priced 3.4 million shares at $14.75 per share for a net total of $47.3 million after fees. Underwriters led by Jeffries & Co. and JP Morgan have the option to sell up to 510,000 shares. Aegerion has applications before US and European regulators for lomitapide, a treatment for homozygous familial hypercholesteremia, a rare genetic cholesterol disease. The drug originally was developed by Bristol-Myers Squibb and ultimately in-licensed by Aegerion. The firm will use the cash to prepare for launch in both the US and EU in 2013, if the regulatory reviews go well. Aegerion shares closed at $14.22 on June 28, down 3.5% from the sale price. – A.L.

Photo of lovably mischievous microbes courtesy of Googlisti under a Creative Commons license.

Financings of the Fortnight Hops Around

We’ve got a short attention span this week, what with magazine deadlines, an overnight trip to Seattle to help interview participants at this lively Xconomy event on biotech business models, and preparations for a week of solo parenting.

So we’ll keep our intro brief while doing a bit of globe-hopping: New sources of biotech funding were unveiled this past fortnight on three different continents. In Europe, Cancer Research UK and the European Investment Fund joined forces for the $80 million CRT Pioneer Fund aimed at helping projects -- not companies -- bridge the valley of you-know-what between preclinical work and mid-stage clinical studies. Read more about its unusual asset-centricity here. (Our suggestion: If you must pass through the Valley of Death, do it in the spring after a wet rainy season.) In Asia, the Malaysian government revved up its second biotech fund, this time for $100 million, as our PharmAsia colleagues describe here.

In North America, Merck is getting granular, contributing $35 million to the Merck Lumira Biosciences Fund for early stage companies in Quebec, part of its Canadian division's promise to contribute $100 million to Quebec-based life science R&D after it closed its Montreal lab in 2010. The fund is targeting a $50 million final close and will be managed by Lumira Capital of Montreal.

Then there’s Russia, which spans two continents. Its sovereign nanotech fund Rusnano is looking for cash from sources other than the Russian government to plow into more investments – many of which so far have been US-based biotech companies, as our START-UP colleagues explained in this profile. Investing in Rusnano is akin to investing in Russia, to an extent, because companies that receive direct investments from Rusnano must pledge to establish a footprint in Russia. Rusnano’s top executive in the US, Dmitry Akhanov, told VentureWire this week that Rusnano expects its first exits this year, “which is very important for valuation” as it goes out to fundraise. Rusnano wants to sell 10% of its $10 billion fund by the end of the year, says Akhanov: "The (Russian) government has decided that Rusnano is mature enough to become private and grow without direct government support."

Notice anything in common with all these funds? Exciting vacation destinations, perhaps – Montreal is certainly near the top of FOTF’s list in the summer months – but we were thinking more of who’s putting the money forth. With the exception of the Merck Lumira fund and the small slice of contributions from les VC, these funds are VC-free. They might, like Rusnano, partner with VCs, but the wellspring is located elsewhere. Could just be the way this fortnight rolled forth, but as serial entrepreneur John Mendlein put it at the Xconomy confab this week, it’s all about the cost of capital these days. For many corporations, foundations and sovereign states, cash is easy to come by, and a lot of those eggs are going into the baskets VCs are either unwilling or unable to fill. And with that, it's time to crack open another edition of...

Merrimack Pharmaceuticals: The cancer therapeutics firm raised $100 million in its initial public offering, selling 14.3 million shares at $7 a piece on Wednesday, March 28. The 20-year-old firm which began under the name Immtek was queued up to go public in January with loftier ambitions – 16.7 million shares in the $8 to $10 range – but postponed due to the ever-present “market conditions.” (Never mind that in the same fortnight, three other biotechs went public.) One big difference between Merrimack and its more successful peers at the time was insider participation; the other three, Cempra Pharmaceuticals, Chemocentryx and Verastem, had it, and Merrimack did not. (At least, it didn’t report it in its SEC filings.) Having previous investors cross over and take shares in the IPO is one of the inducements IPO buyers look for, as we reported in this START-UP story. (For those without a subscription, a shorter version is here.) Lo and behold, Merrimack’s filings this time around show that at least one existing investor (and its largest), Fidelity Investments, lined up to buy nearly $29 million of the offering. Fidelity was the largest purchaser of Merrimack’s most recent private fundraising, the $77 million Series G round (yes, G) it sold in April 2011. The round brought the company’s total private financing to $270 million. Its lead compound MM-398, a reformulated version of the chemotherapy irinotecan, is in Phase III to treat patients with metastatic pancreatic cancer who have failed gemcitabine. It has orphan drug designation in the US and EU. JPMorgan led the underwriting team with help from BofA Merrill Lynch, Cowen and Co. and Oppenheimer & Co. Underwriters have 30 days from the IPO date to buy up to 2.1 million additional shares. Merrimack shares closed at $6.01, down 14% from their IPO price, on April 4. -- Alex Lash

Promethera Biosciences: Belgian cell therapy company Promethera is the latest to join the crowd developing medicines for rare diseases. Promethera has raised $31.4 million in a Series B round, the largest venture financing this year in Europe, to support the start of clinical trials of its progenitor hepatocyte product, Promethera HepaStem, for orphan liver diseases like Crigler-Najjar syndrome, urea cycle disorder and phenylketonuria. Industry interest in its technology is evident from the presence among the new investors of two corporate VC funds, Shire and Boehringer Ingelheim. Japanese firm Mitsui Global Investment and US culture systems company ATMI Life Sciences also have re-upped for the B round. Shire has had a focus on regenerative medicines ever since it bought Advanced BioHealing in May 2011, and Boehringer Ingelheim is already a leading contract manufacturer of biopharmaceuticals using cell culture systems. Promethera's progenitor cells are isolated and cultured from one liver using its proprietary methods, and are expected to treat more than 100 patients without inducing rejection. Although cell therapy companies have disappointed in the past, the sector is starting to show greater promise, with better understanding and controls over cell culture and manufacture. Belgian and UK regulators already have cleared Promethera to begin Phase I/II studies of its hepatocyte product. -- John Davis

ADC Therapeutics: The new Swiss company is less an independent entity and more an extension of Spirogen, a UK developer of cytotoxic small molecules called pyrrolobenzodiazepines (PBDs) to be used in antibody-drug conjugate cancer drugs. Both are portfolio companies of Celtic Therapeutics Holdings, a private equity firm with a complicated past. Celtic has pledged up to $50 million to ADC Therapeutics, which will take the cytotoxins and linker chemistry from Spirogen and try to marry them with antibodies licensed from third parties to create ADCs that could treat several types of cancers. ADC hopes to have its first two candidates in the clinic within 18 months. It will develop the drugs only to Phase II proof of concept, then look for larger partners to help with expensive late-stage development and commercialization. Celtic general partners Peter Corr and Stephen Evans-Freke will sit on ADC Therapeutics’ board, along with the new company’s CEO Michael Forer, Spirogen CEO Christopher Martin, former National Cancer Institute Director Samuel Broder and Barrie Ward, the former CEO of KuDOS Pharmaceuticals. Forer also is a partner in Spirogen. Celtic currently is looking for a director of R&D for ADC Therapeutics, to be based at the London headquarters of Spirogen and travel between the two companies. The $50 million investment will be given to the company as needed for drug development over the next three to five years. -- Lisa LaMotta

Enterome Bioscience: The French firm said March 22 it has raised a 5 million Series A round led by Lundbeckfond Ventures and Seventure Partners. It is one of several companies exploring the human microbiome – the gene pool of the bacteria living within our bodies, particularly in our intestines. Enterome is developing biomarkers to measure abnormalities in the bacterial mix of the intestine, with the goal of eventually developing therapeutics to treat bowel and metabolic diseases mediated by the gut microbiota, such as non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, non-alcoholic steatohepatitis, obesity and type-2 diabetes. Enterome says changes in the bacterial composition that could signal disease include alterations in gut permeability that lead to insulin resistance, low-grade inflammation and metabolic endotoxemia (an increase in the level of bacterial lipopolysaccharides in the blood, often from a sustained high-fat diet). Founders include former executives at Fovea Pharmaceuticals, which was acquired by Sanofi in 2009. Enterome isn’t the only start-up betting that technological advances will release insights into the microbial universe and lead to drugs. Northern California firm Second Genome raised $5 million in 2011 to develop its discovery platform based on the PhyloChip, which analyzes the entire 16S ribosomal RNA gene sequence present in every bacterial genome to measure the relative abundance of the thousands of forms of bacteria in nature.  -- A.L.

RIP Haley. Photo courtesy of flickrer Valeehill through a Creative Commons license.