San Diego biotech Endeavor BioMedicines is on a tear.
The startup has secured a $132.5 million Series C after hiring four C-suite leaders, licensing an antibody-drug conjugate and revealing Phase 2a data for its investigational idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) medicine in recent months.
“It was better than we probably could have hoped for, reasonably,” CEO John Hood said in an interview, referring to the data on IPF candidate ENV-101. “We originally were planning on doing a little bit smaller round, but we had great demand and we had great investors who wanted to come in. So we scaled back about $250 [million] in demand to a $130 [million] round.”
The new money will take Endeavor through 2026, Hood said, noting the company has “not laid down in stone” any plans for an initial public offering, but will watch the public market. It last disclosed a $101 million round in February 2022.
Endeavor is Hood’s follow-up to Impact Biomedicines, where he ran a similar playbook of acquiring a drug from a large pharma company and finding a path to approval. At Impact, Hood’s team took the failed Sanofi drug fedratinib and got it approved for myelofibrosis.
At Endeavor, he acquired a former cancer drug (owned by Eli Lilly, Ignyta and Roche at various points) and repurposed it as a potential treatment for IPF, a fatal condition that impacts a patient’s breathing and can lead to death within five years.
“Realistically, you’re probably better off being diagnosed with lung cancer than IPF right now,” Hood said. “The mortality is worse. The opportunity for being treated is worse for IPF. So it’s a very dire disease.”
Limited options
Patients with IPF have access to two brand-name drugs: Roche’s Esbriet and Boehringer Ingelheim’s Ofev, both approved in October 2014. Esbriet sales declined 70% last year after Sandoz launched the first generic in 2022, and Roche is “evaluating potential options” for the medicine, a spokesperson confirmed to Endpoints in February, following a Bloomberg report that the pharma was looking at a potential sale of the product.
“I really didn’t think the current agents for it are meeting patient needs,” Hood said.
A group of other biotechs is looking at creating new medicines, including Agomab, Pliant Therapeutics and Insilico Medicine, among others.
Endeavor will start a Phase 2b trial in patients with IPF and progressive pulmonary fibrosis this year, Hood said. By blocking the so-called Hedgehog signaling pathway, Endeavor hopes to address the root cause of IPF and PPF by improving lung function and reversing the scarring that impairs a patient’s lungs.
The biotech is also developing ENV-501, a HER3-targeted ADC licensed from Hummingbird Bioscience for up to $430 million. Hood said Endeavor screened through 150 candidates across oncology and other therapeutic areas before signing the pact.
“It’s got attributes that will make it best-in-class. In hindsight, I’m like, I don’t know why we didn’t do this with ADCs the whole time,” Hood said.
The ADC space has been one of biotech’s hottest areas: Merck and Daiichi Sankyo await a June 26 FDA approval decision deadline for their HER3-targeting ADC known as patritumab deruxtecan. BioNTech has also bought into the space, and SystImmune is in the clinic. Endeavor will enter the clinic in the middle of this year for ENV-501, Hood said.
In recent months, the 25-employee company hired president Enoch Kariuki (he had joined as a board member last year), operating chief Chris Krueger, CFO Vishaal Turakhia and CMO Paul Frohna.
Matrix Capital Management affiliate AyurMaya led the Series C. New investors included Fidelity Management & Research Company, Invus, SymBiosis Capital Management, Velosity and Woodline Partners. Existing backers also took part, including abrdn, Ally Bridge Group, Perceptive Advisors, Omega Funds and others.