Cell therapy biotech nabs Series A; Metagenome startup snags $77M round

A cancer cell therapy biotech has reeled in about $20 million to push forward its ongoing Phase I.

Alloplex Biotherapeutics has secured about $20 million of an estimated $25 million round, per SEC paperwork. CEO Frank Borriello posted to LinkedIn two months ago noting the company would look to close a Series A by Jan. 27. Borriello, a former VP at Baxalta, formed the US-Australian biotech in 2016.

The biotech’s so-called SUPLEXA cells, a non-engineered cell therapy, entered a Phase I in Australia last April for patients with metastatic solid tumors and hematologic malignancies, per a US clinical trials database. The study is slated to wrap up next February and enroll 60 patients.

On Alloplex’s website, the company describes its cell therapy as autologous, meaning it derives from a patient’s own cells, in this case peripheral blood combined with cellular manufacturing reagents. Alloplex claims it can manufacture a full course of treatment (4 to 6 weekly doses) in three weeks and requires only “standard laboratory equipment” since they’re not genetically engineered like existing cell therapies. — Kyle LaHucik

Hexagon Bio reels in Series B

Menlo Park, CA biotech Hexagon Bio pulled together a $77.3 million Series B.

The Column Group, Two Sigma Ventures, 8VC, Nextech, Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPP Investments) and others contributed to the round, first reported by Endpoints News last November.

Maureen Hillenmeyer

Pairing computation, biology and chemistry, Hexagon says it will derive insights from fungi and bacteria to create new medicines, initially focused on cancer and infectious disease. In conjunction with the financing, Hexagon promoted Tara Arvedson to CSO and appointed Victor Cee as SVP of drug discovery.

“Multiple breakthroughs, from penicillin to statins to various oncology drugs, have resulted from microbial natural product drug discovery. However, the traditional ‘brute force’ drug discovery process has limited the true potential of this space,” co-founder and CEO Maureen Hillenmeyer said in a press release. “We believe that genomics holds the key to treating many human diseases, and we are poised to use this knowledge to develop novel therapeutics.” — Kyle LaHucik

Bicycle shares small batch of cancer trial data

Bicycle Therapeutics reported data from a monotherapy Phase I dose escalation study of BT8009, its second program, at an ASCO meeting in San Francisco Tuesday morning.

At the end of September, 49 patients had been dosed in the Phase I portion of the Phase I/II trial in patients who had received a median of three prior therapies.

That included 24 patients with urothelial cancer. Out of eight of those patients on the recommended Phase II weekly dosing, one had a complete response. Three patients partially responded.

As of last month, the median duration of response was about 14 months, the UK and Boston biotech said, noting two of the four responders in that group were still on therapy.

The biotech said the drug was “well tolerated across all 49 patients in the study, with a low incidence of adverse events common to antibody-based approaches.”

Last fall, the Genentech-partnered company reported some data from another drug, BT5528, showing a handful of responses in a dozen heavily pretreated patients with a particular tumor expression.

Bicycle also has BT1718, currently being investigated in a Phase IIa with the help of the Cancer Research UK Centre for Drug Development. — Kyle LaHucik

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