No ink left at Amphista Therapeutics offices at the Babraham Campus in Cambridge upon successfully signing partnerships with BMS and Merck worth $2.3 billion, which join Amgen in the big pharma race for protein degraders. Also, at Babraham Campus, they have just opened the applications for their Accelerator and Maxion Therapeutics has incorporated Ian Tomlison,Tom Weaver and Aneesh Karatt Vellat to its Board of Directors. We are not leaving Babraham just yet: STORM Therapeuticshas been awarded a Biomedical Catalyst Innovate UK grant. Friends at STORM have double reasons for toasting as Prof. Eric Miska (co-founder) has been appointed Head of the Department of Biochemistry and this is excellent news for the Department. Talking about successful labs, keep an eye on Prof. Mauro Giacca’s lab at KCL. More on this below.

Some housekeeping notes: this issue marks the 10th edition of Cambridge BioCapital. After all these weeks polishing the format,I am happy to share with you the final brand and website. You are welcome to swing by to check it out. After a few iterations, from now on I will be sending out the newsletter on Friday mornings. I am collecting testimonials of readers who find this work useful or just interesting, so feel free to reach out and let me know your thoughts. Cambridge Biocapital is a side project I do on the side and hope to keep doing for the foreseeable future. It is my way to give back to an ecosystem I admire. If you want to sponsor a particular issue of this newsletter, I am willing to discuss this too. Enough. Let’s dive in!

STORM Therapeutics has been awarded a Biomedical Catalyst grant from Innovate UK. The aim is to develop drugs against an undisclosed SARS-CoV-2 RNA-modifying enzyme. The company will exploit their proprietary drug discovery platform to discover small molecules against RNA-epigenetic mechanisms and RNA-modifying enzymes. Their lead candidate SCT-15 is a METTL3 inhibitor. METTL3 is the sole catalytic subunit of N6-methyladenosine methyltransferase, which catalyses one of the most common internal post-translational modifications in eukaryotes, methylation of internal adenosine residues in the mRNA. The METTL3 inhibitor is expected to enter clinical trials in the second half of 2022 as an oral drug. This enzyme is associates to initiation and maintenance of acute myeloid leukaemia and Wilms Tumour 1. STORM Therapeutics was founded by Tony Kouzarides and Eric Miska and is backed by Cambridge Innovation Capital, Pfizer Ventures, M Ventures, Taiho Ventures, IP Group and Seroba Life Sciences.

Newcastle University spin-out AMLo Biosciences has raised £2.45 million seed round. The round has been led by Ascension’s Life Fund and Conduit EIS Impact Fund, and seconded by NorthStar Ventures, Esperante, Future Planet Capital (BIF Opportunities Fund), and several angel investors. The startup focuses on early detection of skin cancers and aims to identify low risk, early-stage melanomas, thus relieving patients from the risks associated with invasive surveillance techniques. The funding will be used to complete the essential clinical studies to secure inclusion in Clinical Guidelines in key markets. Their skin cancer test (AMBLor) is expected to be launched in UK and US in 2022 and Australia (2023).

British Agri-Tech deals achieved record value: £1.3 billion in 2021. Special Purpose Acquisitions Companies (SPACs) are becoming more popular in the space (e.g., AeroFarms and Spring Valley Acquisition Corp in 2021; Kalera plans to benefit from a SPAC to go public in the Nasdaq)

Upwards and onwards - London, Oxford and Cambridge combined are above the San Francisco in terms of capital raised by life science companies in 2021, the third in the top 25 global cities.

Applications for Babraham Accelerator are now open (Deadline 7th June). Five biotech early-stage companies will be selected to enter a 5-months mentorship program and awarded £10,000 non-dilutive cash. The winners will benefit from lab equipment and bench space, as well as technical and commercial support.

Octopus Ventures explains why they will be tripling down on biotech investments. TechxBio, life science tools, advanced therapeutics, biomanufacturing platforms and synthetic biology are the key areas for the investments to come. Octopus Ventures recently invested on Ori Biotech ($100 million series B). Their life sciences portfolio includes Biofidelity (cancer diagnostics), Nanosyrinx (synthetic biology approach for intracellular protein drug delivery), Imophoron (self-assembling nanoparticle vaccine platform), and Automata (laboratory workflow automation), among others.

University of Dundee spinout Amphista Therapeutics has signed partnership agreements with Bristol Myers Squibb(BMA) and Merck KGaA. The collaboration with Merck includes $44 million upfront cash and $1 billion in milestone payments for the development of 3 targets in the immuno oncology space. In regards to BMS, the partnership includes $30 million upfront and up to $1.25 billion in milestone payments. Cambridge-based Amphista Therapeutics ($53 million series B, March 2021) has developed Eclipsys, a targeted protein degradation platform, and its pipeline has not been unveiled yet. Both big pharma companies had already shown interest in protein degraders. Merck signed a collaboration agreement with CelerisTx (AI-powered degrader discovery technology), and BMS has a protein degraders pipelines leveraging two key methods (heterobifunctional agents and molecular glues). These agreements heat up the race for protein degraders as Amgen is already collaborating with Plexium and Arrakis.

Rinri Therapeutics’ lead candidate Rincell-1 has received innovative medicine designation in the UK. Rincell-1 is a first-in-class regenerative cell therapy tackling SNHL, an auditory neuropathy affecting the nerve signal transmission from the inner ear to the brain auditory centres. This allows the therapy to move forward towards first-in-human clinical trials (2024). Rinri has also appointed Prof. Doug Hartley as Chief Medical Officer, and Sheila Casserly as Director of Clinical Operations.

Evonetix has been granted a European patent (EP 3688189 B1) covering its binary assembly method for gene synthesis. Binary assembly combines microfluidics and the charged nature of DNA molecules to move DNA from synthesis to assembly precision sites on the surface of a semiconductor chip, thus bringing together complementary sequences. Erroneous pairings are removed by thermal control, as changes in melting temperatures separates the non-homologous pairings. Last month, Evonetix was granted a European patent for this thermal control technology.

King’s College London spin-out Heqet Therapeutics and Cambridge-based 4basebio (LON:4BB) have signed a join venture agreement (JDA) to develop a non-viral therapy for cardiac regeneration. 4basebio will utilise its proprietary technology to manufacture non-viral nanoparticles for the delivery of RNA payloads targeting cardiomyocyte regeneration. Heqet Therapeutics is based on the research carried out by Prof. Mauro Giacca. Just last week, Syncona-backed Forcefield Therapeutics emerged from stealth mode to leverage science discoveries from Prof. Giacca. More to this in last week Biocapital issue. In short, the aim is to inject MI patients with three key proteins that prevent cardiomyocyte regeneration.

Maxion Therapeutics has appointed Ian Tomlinson as Chairman of the Board, Tom Weaver as Non-Executive Director and Aneesh Karatt Vellatt as Director. This announcement constitutes their first official public communication. Maxion Therapeutics was founded by antibody phage display pioneer John McCafferty and Aneesh Karatt Vellatt, co-inventors of the company’s pioneering KnotBody Technology. Ian Tomlinson co-founded Domantis (acquired by GSK for $454m) and has served as Senior VP, Head of Worldwide Business Development and Head of Biopharm R&D at GSK. He is also Founding Director and SAB Chair for Apollo Therapeutics. Dr. Weaver is CEO of PetMedix and has been involved in launching and scaling Hexagen Genetics, Geneservice, Congenica and Next Gen Diagnostics. Dr Aneesh Karatt Vellatt co-founded IONTAS with Dr John McCafferty and brings over a decade of experience in antibody and protein drug discovery against challenging targets.

Prof. Eric Miska has been appointed Head of Department for the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Cambridge. Eric Miska is the Herchel Smith Professor of Molecular Genetics. His research focuses on non-coding RNA, epigenetics and genome stability and he co-founded STORM Therapeutics with Prof. Tony Kouzarides.

Achilles Therapeutics has appointed Bernhard Ehmer, MD, to the Board of Directors as Non-Executive Director. Ehmer was CEO of Biotest AG (Germany) and chairman of the Board at Symphogen A/S (Denmark) and will bring his regulatory and commercial expertise to the company.

Congenica has appointed Dr Tom Barber as Chief Scientific Officer. Dr Barber brings over twenty years of experience and leadership in the field, and he up Next Generation Sequencing at Eli Lilly to identify preclinical and clinical models for personalised medicine.

Abzena has appointed Petra Dieterich as Scientific Lead and has expanded operations in California (US) opening its 6th research facility.

Quell Therapeutics is hiring a program manager.

London-based Achilles Therapeutics (NASDAQ: ACHL) has dosed first patient with its personalised clonal neoantigen-reactive T cells (cNet) in Phase I/IIa for the treatment of advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). In addition, the company has started enrolment to evaluate cNeT combined with a PD-1 checkpoint inhibitor for metastatic malignant melanoma. Achilles proprietary platform uses dendritic cells to deliver personalised T cell-based therapy targeting clonal neoantigens (protein markers present in all cancer cells but not in healthy ones) with improved T cell fitness. Thus, it reduces the high-dose IL-2 dependency.

Cambridge-based Arecor Therapeutics (AIM: AREC) has announced positive results from the Phase I clinical trial of its ultra-rapid, ultra-concentrated insulin candidate (AT278). If succesful, it would offer potential to improve post-prandial glucose control and reduce the number of daily injections for those with high insulin needs. There are no concentrated (>200U/mL) rapid acting insulin products on the market. Arecor aims to achieve superior PK/PD properties despite the increase in AT278 concentration (500U/mL). No safety signals were detected.

Bicycle Therapeutics (NASDAQ: BCYC) has issued financial results for the first quarter. The company reports cash and equivalents of $407.4 million to provide a financial runway through 2024. Bicycle pipeline currently focus on a second-generation Bicycle Toxin Conjugate (BTC) targeting EphA2 (BT5528), a second-generation BTC targeting the neoantigen Nectin-4 (BT8009), and a BTC targeting membrane-type 1 matrix metalloproteinase (BT1718).

AbCellera (NASDAQ: ABCL) and Empirico have expanded their collaboration agreement on multi-target antibody discovery. Empirico provides genetically validated drug targets utilising its proprietary Precision Insights Platform, and AbCellera identifies lead antibody candidates against these targets. Empirico holds the right to develop and commercialize the resulting antibodies whereas AbCellera can opt to co-develop each therapeutic program and maintain up to a 50% ownership.

Illumina Q1 revenue up 12% and GRAIL has now entered more than 30 partnerships. However, operational cash flow reached $172 million, $111 million less than in the prior year period. The losses are mostly attributable to operational costs associated to GRAIL.

AbbVie and Cerebras Systems have entered an agreement to accelerate AI-powered research.

The Bradfield Centre has a podcast (’Inside The Bradfield Centre’) where they interview interesting people from the Cambridge ecosystem. Last week they talked to Jennifer Barnett, CEO at Monument Therapeutics, a spin-out from Cambridge Cognition. It is a good episode for those seeking to gain a better understanding of biotech operations.

Why has PacBio chosen London for its European headquarters? An interview with Neil Ward, PacBio’s Vice President and EMEA General Manager.

The trouble with life sciences real state - A conversation between **Dr Glenn Crocker (**Executive Director of We Are Pioneer Group’s (WAPG) ventures business), Chris Walters (Head of life sciences at JLL), and Andrew Teacher (managing director of Blackstock Consulting).

The plot to create an Invention-King, by Anton Howes.