Intarcia: i2o Therapeutics closes $46M Series A, names Kurt Graves as CEO and acquires Intarcia's diabetes asset

In a slew of company updates, i2o Therapeutics has closed a Series A raise worth $46 million from biotech investors and named Kurt Graves as its new chairman, president and CEO. The biotech also acquired the cardiometabolic clinical pipeline of Intarcia Therapeutics, which has six candidates, including ITCA 650 - a type 2 diabetes drug/device combo which has been rejected by the FDA twice. The other five assets are all in the preclinical stage under consideration for T2D, nonalcoholic steatohepatitis and obesity. ITCA 650's next regulatory obstacle is an FDA advisory committee public hearing slated for Sept. 21. The candidate was first rejected in 2017 due to concerns about product quality and clinical deficiencies. A 2019 resubmission was denied again because of similar concerns. Graves has been executive chairman of i2o's board since August 2021, and was also the chairman, president and CEO at Intarcia, essentially placing ITCA 650 back on his desk. After the first FDA rejection in 2017, 60 Intarcia staff members were laid off. Executives departed the company sometime after, with Graves leaving in January 2022, according to his LinkedIn profile. ITCA 650 is a subcutaneously implanted device that continuously releases a GLP-1 receptor agonist, exenatide, for T2D patients over six months. Graves replaces i2o co-founder Ravi Srinivasan, who is said to be pursuing other leadership roles in life sciences. i2o's previous fundraising effort spawned $4 million for a seed round way back in April 2020. Before boosting its pipeline with Intarcia's assets, i2o was mainly focusing on its preclinical oral biologics delivery platform, particularly on a GLP-1 candidate. The biotech locked in collaboration deals with Johnson & Johnson's Janssen in January 2022 for its ionic liquids tech and Sanofi in February 2021 for its oral delivery approach.