Celgene-Seeded PharmAkea Sells Last Fibrotic Drug Candidate to Galecto
When a group of scientists from Amira Pharmaceuticals wanted to start a new biotech after the company’s 2011 acquisition by Bristol-Myers Squibb , Celgene provided seed funding. Eventually Celgene kicked in $35 million more for a research collaboration, an equity stake, and an exclusive option to acquire the startup, PharmAkea Therapeutics. But the partnership fizzled, and this week PharmAkea sold the last of the two drug candidates it developed for fibrotic disease to Galecto, a clinical-stage biotech in Denmark. Financial terms weren’t disclosed. Rob Williamson, a longtime biotech entrepreneur, joined PharmAkea as CEO in 2013 after the company formed its “build-to-buy”-style alliance with Celgene ( now part of Bristol-Myers Squibb (NYSE: BMY ). In late 2016 Celgene extended the partnership for another nine months and tacked on another $9 million in funding, but the biopharma subsequently decided to give up its option to buy the startup. Williamson, in an interview with Xconomy, said the challenge before him at the time was clear: find an acquirer for PharmAkea’s two programs, drugs designed to inhibit autotaxin and LOXL2, enzymes implicated in fibrotic diseases that function in distinct ways. Instead, he discovered that while there was interest in the programs, no potential suitors wanted both. “We started talking to a couple large crossover investors, and they said, we like autotaxin, or we like LOXL2,” he said. “What we did is we split the company in half.”
Once a team of about 25 people, PharmAkea shrank to 10 or so after parting ways with Celgene, then continued reducing its headcount as it negotiated deals for each of the assets, Williamson said. In September 2019, it announced it had sold PAT-409, the autotaxin inhibitor prepared for Phase 1 testing, to South San Francisco-based Blade Therapeutics, which is advancing anti-fibrotic therapies. The Galecto deal adds PharmAkea’s LOXL2 inhibitor PAT-1251, a Phase 2-ready drug, to its lineup of potential treatments for fibrotic diseases, including idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. Galecto’s drug candidates target another enzyme, galectin-3. The clinical-stage company’s backers include Novo Holdings, OrbiMed, Ysios, HBM Healthcare Investments, Sunstone Capital, M Ventures, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Maverick Ventures, Seventure, and SEED Capital. As part of the deal, Carl Goldfischer of Bay City Capital—an early venture backer of PharmaAkea—joins the Galecto board of directors. Sarah de Crescenzo is an Xconomy editor based in San Diego. You can reach her at sdecrescenzo@xconomy.com. Follow @sarahdc

Celgene-Seeded PharmAkea Sells Last Fibrotic Drug Candidate to Galecto

PharmAkea Therapeutics and Bay City Capital have entered a strategic collaboration with Celgene designed to leverage PharmAkeas proprietary drug discovery platform to generate and advance novel smallmolecule therapies targeting cancer and fibrotic diseases...

PharmAkea Celgene and Bay City Capital collaborate on cancer and fibrotic disease

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The IPO market for life sciences startups in San Diego and elsewhere remains hot, and diabetes device maker Tandem Diabetes Care joined the local parade of IPOs. We’ve got the overview, along with a wrap-up of the rest of San Diego’s life sciences news. —San Diego-based Tandem Diabetes Care filed for a $100 million IPO, and plans to use the proceeds to expand its sales and marketing, fund additional R&D, and expand manufacturing of its innovative insulin pump, designed as a consumer friendly “smart” device. T andem Diabetes plans to trade on the Nasdaq market under the ticker symbol TNDM. —San Diego’s PharmAkea Therapeutics said it had reached a comprehensive funding and partnering agreement with Celgene to identify and develop new small molecule drugs for treating cancer and fibrotic diseases. Celgene said it would provide $35 million to PharmAkea for the next three years, with an option to extend their partnering agreement and provide additional funding. Celgene also will take an equity stake in PharmAkea and holds an exclusive option to acquire the company. At the same time, PharmAkea said it had secured $10 million in venture funding from San Francisco-based Bay City Capital. Creached a separate funding deal
—Independa, a San Diego healthcare IT startup providing Web-based services to help families monitor their elders, said it has secured $1.85 million of a $2.25 million Series B financing round led by City Hill Ventures, the San Diego life sciences venture firm. City Hill also provided most of the $5 million Series A financing that Independa disclosed at the beginning of the year . Independa plans to use the latest capital to expand its sales and marketing, innovation and product development, and look for strategic partnership opportunities. —San Diego-based NeuroVigil said it is opening a research lab at NASA Research Park in Mountain View, CA, where it plans to develop innovative technologies that can help patients with ALS and other disorders affecting the central nervous system. The wireless diagnostics company has developed technology that can be used to characterize brain activity, and to test patients’ brainwaves for telltale signs of neurodegenerative disorders, brain tumors, post-traumatic stress disorder, and other neurological ailments. —At the BIO Investor Forum in San Francisco, Dave Thomas, BIO’s director of industry research and programs, argued in his opening remarks that the proliferation of life science IPOs represents a “boom,” not a “bubble.” In a BioWorld account of the talk, Thomas said, “If it was a bubble, the smallest companies, and the riskiest, would be outperforming.” Instead, market attention has been directed to larger companies that are producing results, and the smaller companies have actually been lagging in investment dollars. “This is not the type of behavior you’d see in a bubble,” Thomas said. —San Diego’s Ligand Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: LGND ) said it has obtained FDA approval to initiate clinical development for its Glucagon Receptor Antagonist program with LGD-6972 for treating type 2 diabetes mellitus. The company plans to initiate Phase I clinical testing in the fourth quarter of 2013. Bruce V. Bigelow is the editor of Xconomy San Diego. You can e-mail him at bbigelow@xconomy.com or call (619) 669-8788 Follow @bvbigelow

San Diego Life Sciences Roundup: Tandem Diabetes, Ligand, and More

San Diego-based biopharmaceuticals developer PharmAkea Therapeutics has raised $45M in funding for development of its small molecule drugs, aimed at trating cancer and fibrotic diseases. The funding included $35M from Celgene Corporation in a strategic alliance deal, plus $10M in a Series A funding from Bay City Capital. As part of the deal, Celgene said it has retained an exclusive option to acquire the company. PharmAkea was originally seeded by Celgene. The company's founders originally came from Amira Pharmaceuticals. More information »

PharmAkea Raises $45M For Small Molecule Drugs

Bay City Capital backs PharmAkea with Series A
October 7, 2013
By Angela Sormani
PharmAkea Therapeutics has secured backing from Bay City Capital and Celgene Corporation. Under terms of the agreement, Celgene Corporation will commit $35 million to PharmAkea during an initial three-year alliance term, with an option to extend the collaboration with additional funding. Bay City Capital has invested $10 million in a Series A equity financing. PRESS RELEASE
PharmAkea Therapeutics, Inc. and Bay City Capital, LLC, today announced a strategic collaboration with Celgene Corporation designed to leverage PharmAkea’s proprietary drug discovery platform to generate and advance novel small-molecule therapies targeting cancer and fibrotic diseases. Under terms of the agreement, Celgene Corporation will commit $35 million to PharmAkea during an initial three-year alliance term, with an option to extend the collaboration with additional funding. Bay City Capital has invested $10 million in a Series A equity financing. In addition, Celgene will also take an equity stake in PharmAkea and will retain an exclusive option to acquire the company. PharmAkea was founded in 2012 with seed funding from Celgene, which was used to secure the initial scientific team, initiate operations and commence identification of clinical candidates against selected targets. PharmAkea was co-founded by three highly-experienced early-drug developers, John Hutchinson, Ph.D., Jilly Evans, Ph.D., and Kevin Holme, Ph.D., all three of whom previously worked together at Amira Pharmaceuticals, which was sold to Bristol-Myers Squibb. Joining PharmAkea as Chief Executive Officer will be Robert F. Williamson, III. Mr. Williamson brings with him extensive industry experience, having held key management and leadership positions at venture backed and public life science companies, and was previously a partner with The Boston Consulting Group, Inc.
“The very strong team at PharmAkea is led by drug hunting professionals with a proven track record of delivering important medicines to patients,” said Tom Daniel, M.D., Executive Vice President and President of Research and Early Development at Celgene. “As our commitment to immune & inflammatory diseases expands, this investment partnered with Bay City Capital represents an extension of our commitment to develop innovative approaches and complementary strategic assets for high therapeutic impact.”
“We are excited to be working with Celgene and Bay City Capital on moving our fibrosis and oncology focused programs forward,” said Dr. Hutchinson. “We see tremendous potential to leverage our expertise in the emerging biological understanding of connective tissue disorders to develop new therapeutics for these grave diseases, which carry high morbidity and mortality and affect a significant portion of the population.”
“We are pleased to be collaborating with Celgene Corporation again, and look forward to helping build PharmAkea and advance their mission. PharmAkea brings together people from within all of our networks to form a team with a track record of effective collaboration and success,” said Carl Goldfischer, Managing Director of Bay City Capital. “This kind of collaboration exemplifies an innovative way that venture firms, entrepreneurs, and industry can come together to support and foster progress in the life sciences.”
Merv Turner, former Chief Strategy Officer of Merck & Co. and an advisor to Bay City Capital, will be joining PharmAkea’s board along with Tom Daniel, Carl Goldfischer and Rob Williamson. About PharmAkea Therapeutics, Inc.
PharmAkea Inc. is a privately held San Diego-based biopharmaceutical company whose focus is to discover and develop small molecule therapeutics directed at cancer and fibrotic diseases. For more information, please visit the Company’s website at www.pharmakea.com. About Celgene
Celgene Corporation, headquartered in Summit, New Jersey, is an integrated global pharmaceutical company engaged primarily in the discovery, development and commercialization of innovative therapies for the treatment of cancer and inflammatory diseases through gene and protein regulation. For more information, please visit www.celgene.com. About Bay City Capital, LLC
Bay City Capital is a life sciences venture capital firm investing in opportunities across the various life sciences sectors in companies at all stages of development. Established in 1997, the firm has managed eight venture capital funds representing over $1.6 billion in capital commitments. Bay City Capital has invested in over 100 life sciences companies globally, including Epizyme, Epocrates, GenturaDx, Hyperion Therapeutics, Idev Technologies, Ion Torrent Systems, Lexicon, MAP Pharmaceuticals, Medarex, Nabsys, NextWave Pharmaceuticals, Oculex Pharmaceuticals, Pharmion, Reliant Pharmaceuticals, and Sunesis Pharmaceuticals. For more information, visit www.baycitycapital.com. CONTACT INFORMATION

Bay City Capital backs PharmAkea with Series A

Celgene is an integrated global biopharmaceutical company engaged primarily in the discovery, development and commercialization of therapies for the treatment of cancer and inflammatory diseases through next-generation solutions in protein homeostasis, immuno-oncology, epigenetics, immunology and neuro-inflammation. On November 21, 2019, Celgene was acquired by Bristol-Myers Squibb at a valuation of $74B.

Celgene

PharmAkea said today its 3-year-old collaboration with Celgene to develop novel small-molecule therapies targeting fibrotic diseases has been extended 9 months .

Celgene, PharmAkea Extend Fibrotic Disease Drug Alliance

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PharmAkea Therapeutics is a biopharmaceutical company based in San Diego, CA. The company is developing high-quality, small molecule drug candidates against protein targets involved in fibroproliferative diseases.

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