Immune and cancer biotech Attovia launches with $60M from Frazier and Alamar

Frazier Life Sciences is teaming up with venBio and Illumina Ventures to create a new immune-mediated and cancer-focused biotech spun out of the precision proteomics company Alamar Biosciences.

The new company, Attovia Therapeutics, will launch with $60 million and an exclusive worldwide license to Alamar’s platform. The platform, called Attobody, creates small format binders that could be a key piece to antibody-drug conjugates, radioligands and other biotherapeutics. CEO Tao Fu told Endpoints News that the lead program, in an undisclosed immune-mediated disease, will enter the clinic by 2025.

Yuling Luo

Fu, a venture partner at Frazier, and Alamar CEO Yuling Luo have been friends for “many, many years” and started thinking about how to turn the platform into its own company roughly a year ago. It is already being explored for use in CNS diseases through Alamar’s collaboration with Maryland- and Shanghai-based biotech SciNeuro Pharmaceuticals.

Attovia is working on creating what is known as biparatopic nanobodies, which attach to two different epitopes on the same target, hopefully packing a one-two punch. Fu described the approach’s upside as having much higher affinity, binding the antibody much more tightly to the target, with one arm that can cling on even if the other falls off.

The specificity is also higher than single antibody or nanobody approaches, which is critical for closely related targets like G-protein coupled receptors, or GPCRs, Fu explained. Their smaller size also helps with tissue penetration, and a tunable half-life is another attractive attribute.

Fu said that small format binders have shown promise recently, pointing to Acelyrin’s in-licensed drug izokibep, an anti-IL-17A in multiple late-stage studies. The Los Angeles-area biotech raised $540 million in a May IPO, and this month said it had accelerated the readout of its lead izokibep trial in hidradenitis suppurativa, a chronic skin condition. Attovia investor venBio backed Acelyrin in its private fundraising.

“We really see the Attobody platform as potentially a powerful tool to develop best-in-class biologics,” Fu said. After Frazier committed, they were able to staple together the funds in a matter of months. The name combines Attobody and vitality, he said.

The California startup has about 10 employees and will likely double in size by year’s end, Fu said. Prior to joining Frazier in 2022, Fu was president and operating chief of Zai Lab. He held multiple C-suite posts at Portola Pharmaceuticals from 2015 to 2018 and spent the first half of the 2010s in lead M&A roles at Bristol Myers Squibb and Johnson & Johnson’s pharma unit. Alongside him at Attovia are science chief Petter Veiby, technology officer Hangjun Zhan and business lead Zaneta Odrowaz.

proteomics
therapeutics
antibody-drug conjugates
biologics
pharmaceuticals
biotech
pharma
life sciences