Boehringer Ingelheim has long been known for its work outside oncology. But since the start of 2019, it’s snapped up more than half a dozen cancer startups, including another this week.
“Over the last 10 years, we’ve been actively building an immuno-oncology pipeline,” said Clive Wood, global head of discovery research at Boehringer, in an interview following its purchase Monday of Nerio Therapeutics for as much as $1.3 billion.
Sandy MadiganNerio is a preclinical biotech run by investor Avalon BioVentures. It had just nine employees involved in the company’s pipeline, Nerio CEO Sandy Madigan told Endpoints News, all of whom are now back to working on other biotechs in Avalon’s accelerator.
With the deal, Boehringer will gain Nerio’s small molecules that inhibit protein tyrosine phosphatases N1 and N2, or PTPN1 and PTPN2.
“It’s much more broadly applicable due to the mechanism of reversing the signaling cascade from T cell receptors or from interferon receptors. This could be something that we felt could make really nice combinations with the very specific IO assets that we already have in our portfolio,” Scott DeWire, US head of business development and licensing for Boehringer, said in an interview.
Scott DeWireAbbVie and its partner Calico are in the field with a few Phase 1 studies. But the overall number of companies working on this class of immune checkpoint inhibitors can be counted on one hand, DeWire said.
“Ultimately, we got really interested in AbbVie’s clinical campaign around ‘N2 and started looking at their molecules, the properties of their molecules, and coming up with ways we thought might improve those,” said Madigan, Nerio’s CEO and Avalon managing partner. “They’ll have a good chance to leapfrog AbbVie clinically, we believe.”
Nerio had raised about $10 million since its founding in 2019 and was on a dual-track process looking at either securing a “fairly sizable” Series A to get it into the clinic later this year or inking an M&A deal, Madigan said.
“Several parties” suggested they could lead the venture financing, but after engaging in acquisition talks with “multiple parties,” the biotech opted to go with Boehringer, Madigan said. The companies declined to disclose the financial details of the deal structure.
Growing in oncology
While Boehringer only markets one cancer drug in the US (Gilotrif) and another outside the US (Vargatef), it’s been building its immuno-oncology portfolio with its dealmaking.
That includes cytokine therapies maker Trutino Biosciences, antibody-drug conjugates startup NBE-Therapeutics, tumor microenvironment player Northern Biologics, cancer vaccine platform developer AMAL Therapeutics, delivery platform ICD Therapeutics and Texas-based immunotherapy company Abexxa Biologics.
It landed on Nerio after looking for biotechs developing PTPN1 and PTPN2 inhibitors to help flesh out its early-stage cancer pipeline.
Clive WoodLater this year, it has a key late-stage readout for its HER2-targeting TKI zongertinib. Behind that, it has two other candidates in Phase 2 testing, including a T cell engager and an MDM2-p53 antagonist.
But as a whole, its oncology pipeline is Phase 1-heavy, with a second-generation STING agonist, more T cell engagers, a cancer vaccine candidate, a KRAS inhibitor and a PD-1 antibody, among other shots on goal.
“We are actually very proud of our internal R&D; however, our ambition is to bring multiple breakthrough drugs in the future, and we would have to be incredibly arrogant people to believe that we can bring more [into] the space on our own,” Wood said.