Promontory Therapeutics has ditched its old name in an effort to “delimit” itself and is now doing what many of its biotech peers can’t—expanding.
A tough market downturn and a spate of clinical setbacks have led many companies to slash their workforce—since April, more than 20 biotechs have had to lay off staff—or trim back their pipelines.
In contrast, oncology-focused Promontory, formerly known as Phosplatin Therapeutics, anticipates growth and is set to add on a new wing to its New York office in the next few months. The company currently has 20 employees, according to its LinkedIn page.
“We honestly can’t hire fast enough,” Matthew Price, the biotech’s co-founder, chief operating officer and director, told Fierce Biotech at the 2022 American Society of Clinical Oncology annual meeting in Chicago at the start of June.
Price, for his part, has led the biotech’s industry collaborations with Pfizer and Merck KGaA as well as its agreement with the National Cancer Institute (NCI). With a varied career including a five-year stint as project director at the New York City Opera, perhaps it’s not a surprise that Price isn’t singing from the same sheet as some of your typical biotech execs.
In fact, he’s been with Promontory since its inception in 2010, co-founding Phosplatin with his mentor Robert Fallon, now Promontory president and CEO. The two wanted to make an impact in the world, and recognized biotechs as the future.
“It’s been a personal quest and love affair ever since,” Price said.
The tough financial climate for biotechs in recent months may have created new headwinds for the sector since those early days, so how is Promontory still swimming upstream? Price points to its emerging body of clinical data, which he believes lays out a clear path to launch. He’s confident Promontory will emerge as a standout in the market, especially as companies that may have been flush with cash based on preclinical ideation or early drug discovery perhaps struggle to meet early clinical milestones.
“We can’t control the macro markets,” Price said, adding that the company isn’t paring back but instead focusing on delivering. “We’ve really been able to punch above our weight and deliver on milestones.”
Just last week, the biotech released a peer-reviewed publication of its first-in-human phase 1 study of lead therapeutic candidate PT-112, a small-molecule, anti-cancer agent that aims to generate immunogenic cell death or unlock an anti-cancer immune response. Published in the The Lancet’s eclinicalMedicine journal, the data from 66 patients find PT-112 safe and well-tolerated in heavily pretreated cancer patients. The study also found that the drug elicited prolonged responses against thymus and lung cancers.
Many immunotherapy modalities focus on T-cell checkpoint inhibitors, which might not address cancer cell death in a way that engages the immune system. The emerging space of small-molecule immunogenic drugs tackles this issue, with PT-112 validated as an immunogenic cell death inducer in preclinical models.
The drug has also received two orphan tags from the FDA—one in 2017 for relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma, meaning it has become unresponsive to treatment, and another in 2018 for rare cancer forms thymoma and thymic carcinoma.
PT-112 is currently being assessed in three phase 2 trials. One study, in collaboration with Pfizer and Merck KGaA, is evaluating the drug in combination with Pfizer’s PD-L1 immune checkpoint inhibitor Bavencio for non-small cell lung cancer.
In another trial, conducted with Memorial Sloan Kettering in New York, the drug is being tested in patients with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer. The final midstage study is a partnership with the NCI to evaluate the drug as a treatment for thymoma and thymic carcinoma.
Promontory has raised $74 million in equity capital to date, with $37 million coming from a series A financing round that closed out in December 2021. The biotech is now preparing for the next stage of precommercial work ahead of an anticipated launch of PT-112 and eventually growth into other programs, Price said.
Just last month, the biotech dropped the Phosplatin Therapeutics name for Promontory to reflect the company’s expansionist mindset and a new goal: to be the leading company within oncology therapeutics advancing small-molecule immunotherapies. While the name Phosplatin sits in the discard pile, the company still holds onto its global license for phosphaplatins, a family of new agents in clinical development for treating both solid tumors and hematological cancers.
The lead agent is the subject of two approved investigational new drug applications, so why change the name at all if the company hasn’t given up on the phosphaplatin route entirely? A promontory is defined as a point of high land that juts out into a large body of water, and Price explains that the name was chosen during a board meeting in the Rocky Mountains.
The biotech’s leaders consider themselves on the climb to success, he adds, but know they haven’t yet reached the peak.