Senior Staff Writer

A few days after changing its name from Compound Therapeutics Inc. to Adnexus Therapeutics Inc., the newly named company raised $27 million in a Series B financing to advance a new class of proteins called AdNectins.

Waltham, Mass.-based Adnexus focuses on cancer, diabetes, inflammatory diseases and other therapeutic indications for which AdNectins might show efficacy.

The financing, expected to be announced today, should cover the initial clinical development of Adenexus' lead candidate, Angiocept (CT-322). The FDA cleared the path last week for the company to start a Phase I trial in patients with cancer.

"The proceeds will take Angiocept through Phase II and allow us to concurrently build out our pipeline," said John Mendlein, CEO of Adnexus.

The company should reach the end of Phase II sometime in 2008, at which time Adnexus will decide whether to conduct another financing and advance Angiocept on its own, or seek a partner.

New York-based Venrock Associates led the financing and was joined by founding investors Atlas Venture, of Boston; Flagship Ventures, of Cambridge, Mass.; and Polaris Venture Partners, of Waltham, Mass. Anders Hove, of Venrock, is joining Adnexus' board.

Angiocept is based on a protein that specifically blocks human vascular endothelial growth factor receptor 2, which is expressed on endothelial cells in tumors. Preclinical data showed that treatment with the product significantly inhibited tumor growth, and the pharmacokinetic and safety profiles supported moving it into the clinic.

Mendlein said the company intends to move at least one development candidate into the clinic each year. It takes about 18 months to move from discovery stage to the filing of an investigational new drug application.

"Our next preclinical program is also oncology," he told BioWorld Today. "It's moving very rapidly, and we have very attractive molecules."

The protein therapeutics, designed using Adnexus' PROfusion System, are part of a novel structural class of products aimed toward validated targets. PROfusion enables the screening of more than 1 trillion different micro-synthesized AdNectins for each target. AdNectins are based on human fibronectin, an extracellular protein abundant in human serum. Advantages to the therapeutics include discovery time, manufacturing costs and the ability to avoid intellectual property barriers faced by companies developing traditional protein and small-molecule therapeutics.

"There's a global movement afoot to look for the next class of protein therapeutics," Mendlein said. "We're in a unique situation."

While AdNectins share some of the successful features of the first two groups of protein therapeutics - antibodies and traps - they have no sequence similarity to antibodies and are able to avoid antibody-based patents. They also can be produced rapidly and cheaply in bacteria (E. coli), and they are targeting established markets. The intellectual property for antibodies is spread across different companies, whereas the AdNectin technology is owned by Adnexus. It has more than 100 issued and pending patents covering AdNectins and its PROfusion protein design engine.

"Both the discovery engine and the protein therapeutic class are in one company, and we can exclusively control the IP on both," Mendlein said.

The reach of AdNectins may be as "broad and profound as siRNA," he added, but researchers know more about antibodies, and the company's work should not encounter the same technology challenges.

Adnexus acquired PROfusion, along with the AdNectin platform and an oncology candidate program, from its buyout of Lexington, Mass.-based Phylos Inc. in December 2003 for $4 million. The deal was announced the following March. (See BioWorld Today, March 10, 2004.)

Founded in September 2002, Adnexus has raised $55 million, including the Series B round. The Series A round began in March 2003 and was completed in January 2005, raising $28 million. The company changed its name last week to reflect a new phase of development focused on AdNectins, and to gain a familiarity "between the product class that we have and our name," Mendlein said.

The company previously worked on AdZymes, catalytic protein antagonists that mediate target destruction.

"We still think AdZymes can add long-term value to the company," Mendlein said. "At this point, most of our focus is on creating antagonists and molecules to create different pathways in the body using AdNectins."

In other financing news:

GlycoMimetics Inc., of Gaithersburg, Md., completed its Series B financing, attracting an additional $15.4 million to advance its research programs. The round was led by venture firm New Enterprise Associates, which was joined by all other current GMI venture investors, including Alliance Technology Ventures, Anthem Capital Management, The Novartis Venture Fund, PTV Sciences LP and The Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development (Maryland DBED). GlycoMimetics will use the funding to advance its two lead preclinical programs. The company is developing therapies based on specific roles played by certain carbohydrates.