Staff Writer

Catabasis Pharmaceuticals Inc. pulled down $39.6 million in a Series A financing that puts the firm on its way to developing drugs that target inflammation in diabetes by working with salsalate - a prodrug of salicylate - as well as omega-3 fatty acids, as amplified through a platform called SMART-linker.

Led by SV Life Sciences, Clarus Ventures and MedImmune Ventures, the round also included Advanced Technology Ventures, and should take the company through Phase IIa trials with its lead program (still at the preclinical stage) or "another three or four years," estimated CEO Jill C. Milne, who founded the company with Michael Jirousek, chief financial officer, in 2008. Both previously worked at Cambridge, Mass.-based Sirtris Pharmaceuticals Inc., acquired the same year by GlaxoSmithKline plc, of London, for $720 million. (See BioWorld Today, April 24, 2008.)

Catabasis, also of Cambridge, takes its name from a word that means "decline of disease." The firm has seven full-time employees, which will grow to about 12 by the end of this year and could double that number by the end of 2011.

Milne said Catabasis has been staying below the radar while its technology develops, and Jirousek noted that the first patents on the firm's intellectual property have just begun to appear. The SMART-linker acronym is based on Catabasis' aim of making drugs that are "safely metabolized and rightly targeted," Milne said. "It's a chemical conjugation" of omega-3 with salsalate to safely amplify the well-characterized properties of both, she added. "There's going to be more to come," she told BioWorld Today. "We have the intention of publishing a scientific paper over the course of the next year."

Jirousek said the approach, which deploys a natural bond that takes place in the human body, has shown "pretty remarkable efficacy" in six animal models. Catabasis plans to file an investigational new drug application next year, and enter Phase I trials by the end of 2011.

Clinical studies of the nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug salsalate, sold generically for rheumatoid arthritis, have found that the compound could be useful in Type II diabetes, Catabasis' first-sought indication. In a three-month trial led by Joslin Diabetes Center researchers, those who took salsalate showed significantly improved blood glucose levels. Steven Shoelson, from Harvard Medical School, and Joslin, led that trial, and also was one of Catabasis' founders. Results from the study were published online in the Annals of Internal Medicine. (See BioWorld Today, March 29, 2010.)

Diabetes "is a crowded space, in a sense, but this is a totally new approach," Milne said. Nothing on the market for diabetes now is directed at inflammation, and Catabasis' candidate "has the potential to be disease-modifying and really get at the root cause of diabetes and insulin resistance," she said. "This is an exciting time to be in diabetes research," as others are taking heed of the role of inflammation, too - not only in that disease but in conditions that often go along with diabetes, such as heart trouble, especially given the role of omega-3s against atherosclerosis and lipid disorders.

Catabasis will start partner shopping for the lead program "sometime in Phase II," Milne said. "We haven't worked out the details of how best to do it."

Jirousek told BioWorld Today that the platform is such that the firm "could partner a lead asset that we'll have in the clinic next year, or partner an earlier program [in a deal] that might look much more collaborative." The flexible conjugate approach offers chances for multiple new medications and "a plethora of business development opportunities," he said.