Elucida Oncology: Elucida Oncology nabs more funds for its take on ADCs, sees potential in radiotherapy partnership

Elucida Oncology has raised another approximately $30 million to bring its version of antibody-drug conjugates to more patients in the clinical setting, the company told Endpoints News. The CDC has a different meaning over at the New Jersey biotech, which is developing what it calls "C'Dot-Drug-Conjugates." The goal is to better attack cancerous tissue with smaller-sized nanoparticles, more potency and less adverse impact on patients' health. Elucida's take on the class of ADCs, which have ballooned in R&D popularity and surpassed the dozen milestone in terms of regulatory approvals, started in the labs of Cornell and has gone through further development at Memorial Sloan Kettering. The company came together a little under a decade ago, per SEC filings. The biotech is in the process of moving from the dose-ranging portion of its first clinical trial and into expansion cohorts, CEO and president Geno Germano told Endpoints. Dubbed ELU001, the first program is going after folate receptor alpha, a protein that many cancers exhibit, and the expansion cohorts will include patients with ovarian and endometrial cancers, the CEO added. "Unlike the ADCs, we're not seeing the off-target toxicities, including lung toxicities or ocular toxicities, or liver or kidney, etc," Germano said, echoing some of the findings Elucida presented at the American Association for Cancer Research meeting in April. "Our product tends to circulate in the bloodstream, accumulate in the tumor and then clear the bloodstream through the kidneys without really appreciable uptake into any healthy tissues." A long­time Pfiz­er chief's ul­tra-qui­et biotech re-emerges with new cash and plans for the clin­ic Elucida is one of multiple biotechs looking to take on a different approach to ADCs, which have blossomed in cancer treatment thanks to Seagen, Daiichi Sankyo and others. Earlier this week, a Philips Healthcare spinout, Tagworks Pharmaceuticals, disclosed a $65 million raise for its approach to ADCs that iterates upon the Nobel-winning field of click chemistry to release therapeutics at a more opportune place. As the field expands, Elucida is looking to beef up its R&D spending. After disclosing a $44 million Series A-1 in 2021, the biotech has now stapled together another $30 million in a Series A-2 and will soon seek another $10 million to $20 million, finance and business chief Ian Somaiya said in a joint interview with Germano, the former leader of Pfizer's global pharma business. The initial Series A was $28 million in 2018. Toward the end of the year, Elucida will likely look at raising a Series B, Somaiya said, noting the biotech should have preliminary data on the expansion cohorts by that time. Enrollment for all three expansion cohorts - high levels of folate receptor alpha, low or moderate levels and endometrial - should wrap up this year, he added. Pending the amount of money raised, Elucida could also open the trial to a cohort of patients whose non-small cell lung cancer has spread into the brain, Germano said. Beyond that, the biotech has expanded the scope of a research collaboration from just blood cancers to also solid tumors with an unnamed Big Pharma that has experience in the ADC space. When the partner declares a clinical candidate, it can spark a licensing deal, Germano said. His former employer, Pfizer, is also going all in on the space, offering up $43 billion to get its hands on one of the class pioneers, Seagen. Elucida will also start clinical studies of ELU001 in a pediatric form of acute myeloid leukemia in the second half of this year, Germano said. Two additional compounds are going through preclinical work, he added. Somaiya also sees a partnership route for the radiotherapy side of the business. The platform was originally developed for diagnostic purposes, he said, but if its radioisotopes adjust to a tumor-killing strategy, then they have their hands on potential radiotherapies. "We would hope to leverage, but that would occur through a partnership with a company because it's just a very different business model," Somaiya said. The goal is to deliver radioisotope without tampering with normal tissues.