Exclusive: Sanofi, Astellas venture arms add cash to Avilar’s ‘ATAC’ mission

The venture arms of Sanofi and Astellas have grown their investment in Avilar Therapeutics to help steer the biotech through a niche of the growing protein degradation field.

Medical Excellence Capital also joined the Big Pharma’s investment teams, and together the three have now put another $15 million into the biotech, on top of an original $60 million commitment from RA Capital in 2021, CEO Daniel Grau told Endpoints News.

As others in the protein degradation field develop so-called PROTACs, driven by the likes of Arvinas, and now RIPTACs, led by Craig Crews’ Halda Therapeutics, Avilar is attempting to bring forth ATACs.

Adam Muzikant

Short for ASGPR Targeting Chimeras, the small molecules aim to dispose of unwanted proteins circulating beyond the walls of the cell, whereas PROTACs typically focus on those inside the cell. (There are also LYTACs, ATTECs, MADTACs and AUTACs.)

The goal is to bind one ligand to a target protein and another to ASGPR to shuttle unwanted proteins to the trash bin. Grau said the pipeline opportunities have exceeded last year’s expectations, with immunology and neurology the prime moving forward in parallel, the CEO said.

After hiring a chief business officer in mid-2022, the biotech has been at work lining up potential biopharma partners, given the vast scope of Avilar’s potential, Grau said. The new chief dealmaker, Adam Muzikant, previously helped orchestrate Flexion Therapeutics’ sale to Pacira BioSciences and Synta Pharmaceuticals’ merger with Madrigal Pharmaceuticals.

Paulina Hill

Avilar will build out an in-house pipeline while seeking partners on other programs at the same time, Grau said. He declined to disclose timeframes for clinical entry or specific indications.

In explaining the potential for Avilar’s platform, Grau noted about one-third of the approximately 20,000 proteins in the human proteome are extracellular or membrane proteins. Hundreds of those are validated or biologically de-risked, he noted, making for a greenfield of avenues to go down.

Sanofi Ventures partner Paulina Hill joined the board in conjunction with the financing.

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