Here Come the NanoMAbs

A new monoclonal antibody-based drug development company brings a fresh technological approach and ambitious business model to the Israeli biotech scene.

Scientists for years have been looking for ways to enhance the specificity with which antibodies recognize antigens, their stability in various environmental conditions and their therapeutic efficacy.

Immune Pharmaceuticals believes the key to achieving this lies in ‘nanoMAbs’ –antibodies that are conjugated to nanoparticles. The company has licensed a technology invented by Prof. Shimon Benita of the Hebrew University that enables the coupling of monoclonal antibodies with nanoparticles containing thousands of cytotoxic molecules.

“This new technology allows us to deliver a higher payload of cytotoxics to the target,” explains CEO Daniel Teper. “Nothing is lost on the way. The nanoparticle opens only when it is inside the cell and because you have multiple antibodies the overall internalization to the cell is more efficient.”

That’s the technology part. The innovative business approach is to build a company with drugs for cancer and inflammatory diseases that overcomes two key weaknesses that have plagued the local industry: small size and a lack of managerial experience.

To prevail over the former and grow Immune quickly Teper is implementing a business plan that does not rest solely on developing a pipeline based on the nano-antibody platform. Instead he is actively in-licensing mature antibody drug candidates from outside sources.

The first product the company has acquired is a Phase II drug candidate that originated at Cambridge Antibody Technology, one of the most successful developers of monoclonal antibody drugs, now part of Medimmune, the Biologics Division of AstraZeneca. The drug candidate, known as Bertilimumab, is a human monoclonal antibody targeting eotaxin-1. Bertilimumab showed initially disappointing results in the treatment of allergies. Teper believes that by repurposing the drug for Intestinal Bowel Disorder the drug will be more effective. He notes that the drug already has a regulatory file in the UK , which will make obtaining an IND in the US and regulatory approval in Israel relatively straightforward. “We expect to begin clinical trials in Israel and the US in the spring,” he says.

Immune’s managerial experience is significantly greater than what most Israeli startups offer. Teper is a seasoned veteran of both the US and European industries, having held senior executive positions at Novartis, GSK and Sanofi-Aventis. He was a co-founder of Novagali (NYSE Euronext: NOVA) which was recently acquired by Japan’s Santen. Other prominent figures include board member Dr. Isaac Kobrin, who helped Actelion Pharmaceuticals grow from start-up to multi-billion dollar public company; CSO Prof. Marc Rothenberg who is Director of Immunology and Allergy at Cincinatti Children’s Hospital,; CMO Dr Alan Harris, a clinical development veteran of Novartis, Schering Plough and Pfizer, CFO Serge Goldner, previously the Managing Partner for Life Sciences at Cukierman Investment House; and Board member David Naveh, formerly Vice-President and Chief Technical Officer of Bayer Biological Products, Worldwide.

The company has raised $2 million initially from private investors and expects to increase this amount to $5 million by the end of the year. Discussions are underway with venture capitalists to obtain $10-20 million by the summer of 2012.