Inotek Pharmaceuticals

Mar 31, 2023

Paul Schloesser Associate Editor A pub­lic T cell biotech’s chief ex­ec­u­tive has de­cid­ed to leave the com­pa­ny. TScan Ther­a­peu­tics said Fri­day morn­ing that CEO David South­well stepped down ear­li­er this week, leav­ing both his chief ex­ec­u­tive and board mem­ber roles. Fill­ing in is Gavin MacBeath, the com­pa­ny’s CSO and COO. He be­came the act­ing CEO on Tues­day, and will con­tin­ue to re­main CSO and COO, TScan’s an­nounce­ment read. South­well didn’t re­veal what his next steps are, say­ing in pre­pared re­marks on­ly that he looks for­ward to fol­low­ing the com­pa­ny as “I move on to oth­er op­por­tu­ni­ties.” Shares $TCRX rose just un­der 4.5% in ear­ly morn­ing trad­ing Fri­day. TScan did not im­me­di­ate­ly re­spond to a query from End­points News. MacBeath is one of the co-founders of Mer­ri­mack Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals, a now-de­funct biotech that shut down op­er­a­tions in 2019 and hand­ed off its FDA-ap­proved drug to Ipsen in 2017 in a bil­lion-dol­lar deal that might see Mer­ri­mack net an even­tu­al pay­day . South­well, mean­while, got his start in in­vest­ment bank­ing, per his LinkedIn pro­file. Af­ter spend­ing ap­prox­i­mate­ly a decade at Lehman Broth­ers, he went to Sunovion Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals — then known as Sepra­cor — be­fore it got bought out by Sum­it­o­mo in 2010 and re­brand­ed. Be­yond that, he was CEO at ​​In­otek Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals for sev­er­al years be­fore join­ing TScan in the fall of 2018. As for TScan, it emerged from stealth in 2019, rais­ing $48 mil­lion com­bined be­tween Se­ries A and B fi­nanc­ing with No­var­tis’ back­ing. It cur­rent­ly fo­cus­es on an­a­lyz­ing T cells of can­cer pa­tients, specif­i­cal­ly those who have ac­tive re­spons­es to im­munother­a­py. Re­searchers use that in­fo to try to find new pairs of T cell re­cep­tors, or TCRs, and tar­gets. TScan has ap­prox­i­mate­ly $120 mil­lion in cash and equiv­a­lents to work with, save $5 mil­lion that’s count­ed as re­strict­ed cash, per re­cent SEC fil­ings. The biotech wrote Fri­day that the es­ti­mat­ed run­way will last the com­pa­ny in­to Q2 of 2024. In the mean­time, the biotech is work­ing on en­rolling pa­tients in a Phase I hema­to­log­ic ma­lig­nan­cies um­brel­la tri­al look­ing at two pro­grams, TSC-100 and TSC-101, and plans to re­port some da­ta by year’s end. Out­side of that, FDA cleared three INDs in sol­id tu­mors for un­spec­i­fied drug can­di­dates, and the com­pa­ny is look­ing to start en­rolling pa­tients some­time in Q3. AUTHOR Kyle LaHucik Associate Editor In the early 1990s, Mathai Mammen was a teaching assistant in Greg Verdine’s Science B46 course at Harvard. In June, the former R&D head at Johnson & Johnson will succeed Verdine as CEO, president and chair of FogPharma, the same month the seven-year-old biotech kickstarts its first clinical trial. After leading R&D at one of the largest drugmakers in the world, taking the company through more than half a dozen drug approvals in the past few years , not to mention a Covid-19 vaccine race, Mammen departed J&J last month and will take the helm of a Cambridge, MA biotech attempting to go after what Verdine calls the “true emperor of all oncogenes” — beta-catenin. Keep reading Endpoints with a free subscription Unlock this story instantly and join 163,900+ biopharma pros reading Endpoints daily — and it's free. SIGN UP Katherine Lewin News Reporter This year has been tough for Aptinyx — two failed trials, a 60% cut in its workforce, and now the company has brought on a firm to help evaluate the future of the company. The press release noted it’s working with the firm Ladenburg Thalmann as its financial advisor to assist in exploring and evaluating “strategic alternatives” — a process that a growing group of struggling biotechs has embarked on, sometimes ending in a merger , asset sale or wind-down . Keep reading Endpoints with a free subscription Unlock this story instantly and join 163,900+ biopharma pros reading Endpoints daily — and it's free. SIGN UP Tyler Patchen News Reporter The German life science group Sartorius will be picking up French contract manufacturer Polyplus for the price of €2.4 billion, or $2.6 billion. On Friday, Sartorius announced the acquisition through its French subgroup, Sartorius Stedim Biotech, which will be acquiring Polyplus from private investors ARCHIMED and WP GG Holdings IV. Polyplus has 270 employees and produces materials and components that go into making viral vectors that are used in cell and gene therapies. This includes DNA/RNA reagents as well as plasmid DNA. Polyplus has locations in France, Belgium, China and the US. Read More March 31, 2023 06:44 AM EDTUpdated 07:53 AM Zachary Brennan Senior Editor Congress is honing in on how it wants to overhaul the rules of the road for pharmacy benefit managers, with a Senate Finance Committee hearing Thursday serving as the latest example of the Hill’s readiness to make changes to how pharma middlemen operate. While pledging to ensure patients and pharmacies “don’t get a raw deal,” Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden (D-OR) laid out the beginning of what looks like a major bipartisan effort — moves the PBM industry is likely to challenge vigorously. Keep reading Endpoints with a free subscription Unlock this story instantly and join 163,900+ biopharma pros reading Endpoints daily — and it's free. SIGN UP Tyler Patchen News Reporter Shares of the Sweden-based rare disease biotech Egetis Therapeutics skyrocketed on Thursday afternoon as the company said it’s engaged in “ongoing discussion” with external parties regarding a “potential acquisition.” Egetis confirmed rumors with a statement on Thursday while noting that there is no certainty that a takeover offer will be made. Nonetheless, the possibility of an acquisition has shot up Egetis’ share price. By the afternoon on Thursday, its stock price was {$EGTX.ST} up over 38%. An Egetis spokesperson told Endpoints News in an email that it has no further comments. Keep reading Endpoints with a free subscription Unlock this story instantly and join 163,900+ biopharma pros reading Endpoints daily — and it's free. SIGN UP LOG IN