Scoop: MPM backs a new checkpoint inhibitor biotech in $80M raise

An MPM Capital-backed biotech based on the discovery of a new immune checkpoint inhibitor has secured about $80 million in financing, with former executives from Surface Oncology, Syndax and bluebird bio at the helm.

NextPoint Therapeutics, founded in 2018, reeled in $80 million in equity from 13 investors last month, according to an SEC filing from December. A spokesperson for Boston-based NextPoint declined to comment.

XingXing Zang

The biotech is based on the work of Albert Einstein College of Medicine professor XingXing Zang and his lab’s discovery of a new immune checkpoint inhibitor, as well as the work of Gordon Freeman, a PD-L1 and PD-L2 protein researcher at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, according to the company’s website.

MPM has worked with Freeman before on the Novartis-acquired CoStim Pharmaceuticals. Zang’s lab has also teamed up with multiple drug developers, including Pfizer, Chia Tai Tianqing Pharmaceutical Group, Jiangsu Hengrui and others.

Gordon Freeman

Zang has developed and patented at least 10 checkpoint inhibitors, including one with his former mentor and Nobel laureate Jim Allison at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, according to Zang’s academic institution.

NextPoint’s pipeline of antibody candidates is licensed from Albert Einstein College of Medicine. The biotech is going after HHLA2 and KIR3DL3, according to the institution.

In a study published in July 2021 in Science Immunology, Zang and colleagues found the KIR3DL3-HHLA2 pathway could be a new immunotherapy target.

“Interactions of KIR3DL3 with tumoral HHLA2 inhibited the function and killing capacity of both CD8+ T cells and NK cells,” they wrote. “KIR3DL3+ immune cells infiltrated various types of HHLA2+ tumors from patients with cancer, and blockade of KIR3DL3 inhibited the growth of tumors in various mouse models.”

Briggs Morrison

Leading the crew at NextPoint is CEO Detlev Biniszkiewicz, an MPM managing director and former Surface Oncology chief executive. He did not respond to an emailed inquiry from Endpoints News. Another former Surface executive, Scott Chappel, worked with NextPoint for more than three years, but the CSO departed last month, according to his LinkedIn profile.

Also in the C-suite is ex-Syndax CEO and former AstraZeneca R&D leader Briggs Morrison, who is NextPoint’s interim CMO, according to the biotech’s website. Rounding out the leadership bench is former bluebird bio VP Paul Conrad as CBO.

Other MPM-affiliated biotech leaders are listed as directors on the SEC filing from last month, including Matthew Roden and Ansbert Gadicke, as well as Sanofi Ventures partner Paulina Hill.

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immunotherapy
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