Why we invested in ImmunoGenesis: An Immuno-Oncology Biopharmaceutical Company Re-Envisioning “Cold” Tumor Treatment.
We’re incredibly excited to announce our latest investment in ImmunoGenesis — a clinical-stage biotechnology company developing therapeutics to provide more consistent benefit to patients with immune-infiltrated tumors and for the first time catalyze effective immune responses in immunologically “cold” cancers such as prostate, colorectal and pancreatic cancer.
We were first introduced to the company through their CEO, Jim Barlow — an impressive leader with extensive big pharma experience. His excitement and belief in the company, and the problem they are trying to solve, was contagious and we were quick to invest in their vision.
A comment from Jim Barlow, CEO of ImmunoGenesis:
“Juno Capital will serve as a critical provider of startup investment for innovative startup businesses in the Philadelphia area. Having access to capital at the formative stages of a business is absolutely vital to building the company to achieve critical growth milestones. Juno’s investment in ImmunoGenesis will help the company bring it’s innovative pipeline of immunotherapy cancer treatments to the clinical trials in humans.”
The problem.
Antibody drugs that block engagement of the T cell co-inhibitory receptor programmed cell death-1 (PD-1) or its cognate ligand programmed death-1 ligand 1 (PD-L1) are the cornerstone of immunotherapy’s emergence as a key pillar of modern oncology. For patients with “hot”, immune infiltrated cancers, PD-1 blockade offers moderate to high frequencies of objective clinical responses and the chance of durable lifelong cures.
The majority of cancer patients, however, present with “cold” tumors with low frequencies of immune-targetable mutations and little or no immune infiltration. In this setting, PD-1 blockade benefits less than 5% of patients and there are no FDA-approved indications excepting the small minority of patients with underlying mismatch-repair deficiencies. Even across the “hot” and “warm” cancers for which there are FDA-approved PD-(L)1 indications, the response rate to PD-1 blockade remains under 25%.
Thus, a critical need exists for immunotherapies that both provide more consistent benefit for patients with immune-infiltrated tumors and also mediate significant clinical responses against “cold” cancers.
The solution.
Dr. Michael A. Curran, Founder of ImmunoGenesis, is considered to be among the pioneers of modern Immuno-Oncology. Dr. Curran, the management team, and the board of directors bring decades of industry experience with them — together they are developing the next generation of checkpoint blockade.
ImmunoGenesis is developing systemic targeted STING agonists that have the potential to treat all current PD-1 patients and address the unmet need in “cold” tumors. Their initial Phase I trial was stopped early for efficacy in metastatic CRPC, PDAC, and HNSCC. The results of this trial showed prolonged survival in advanced cancer patients. Phase II trials are expected to begin in Q4 2020.
Why did we invest?
Aside from promising trial results and the belief we have in the management team, there is significant commercial potential for immunotherapies that effectively treat “Cold” cancers.
Sales of market-leading PD-1 inhibitors Keytruda and Opdivo are estimated at $17 billion and $11 billion in 2024, respectively (Evaluate Pharma); However, these therapies are primarily effective in “Hot” tumors which represent a small portion of all cancers.
Juno Capital participated in ImmunoGenesis’ $8M seed round. Prior to closing this round, ImmunoGenesis secured an additional $15.5M grant from the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas (CPRIT).
We could not be more excited for ImmunoGenesis to be joining the Juno Capital family and look forward to being part of their journey over the years to come.
