As SynOx Therapeutics gears up to test its anti-CSF1R antibody in registrational trials, the Dublin-based biotech is getting a pair of new leaders. Ray Barlow, formerly the chief business officer of Kiadis Pharma, signs on as CEO and Ton Logtenberg, Ph.D. becomes the company’s new non-executive chairman.
Barlow arrives three months after Sanofi closed its €308 million ($358 million) acquisition of Kiadis, struck in November 2020. The buyout followed a licensing deal the duo initially penned a year back, which saw the French pharma license a preclinical natural killer (NK) program from Kiadis, as well as the right to use its platform for two more preclinical programs.
Logtenberg, meanwhile, co-founded vaccine developer Crucell, acquired by Johnson & Johnsons in 2011 for $2.4 billion and was founder, president and CEO of cancer biotech Merus.
SynOx is developing emactuzumab for tenosynovial giant cell tumors (TGCT), a group of rare, benign tumors that form in the joints, affecting connective tissue that lines joints, tendons and bursa. Though the tumors are not cancerous and do not spread to other parts of the body, they can grow and damage surrounding tissue. Surgery is the main treatment option, but tumors can return.
The company raised €37 million ($44 million) in November 2020 to propel the emactuzumab through the clinic. Now it has two biotech veterans to help run the show, both with buyout experiences.
“Emactuzumab, an IgG1 CSF-1R targeted antibody, has already generated highly promising results as a monotherapy in over 60 patients with TGCT and we look forward to continuing to work with the regulatory agencies to enable the initiation of our upcoming registrational clinical trial (TANGENT) in the USA and EU,” Barlow said in a statement.
Roche developed emactuzumab, bringing it into the clinic in 2011 before offloading it to Oxford, U.K.-based Celleron in August 2020. Celleron then spun out SynOx to develop the antibody through to what it hopes will be an approval.
Roche started three phase 1 trials of the drug between 2011 and 2016 and withdrew a fourth study in 2018. One of the trials, which tested the drug in multiple solid tumor types, caught the eye of investors HealthCap, Medicxi, Forbion and Gimv.
The VCs signed on to back SynOx on the strength of data from 63 patients with TGCT. A 2015 paper found that of the 28 evaluable patients, 86% saw their tumors shrink. In November 2020, researchers published data from more patients, showing that nearly three-quarters of them (71%) saw their tumors shrink and that two years after enrollment, 64% still had shrinkage.