October 19, 2015
By Alex Keown, BioSpace.com Breaking News Staff
LOS ANGELES -- Patrick Soon-Shiong’s network of companies, NantWorks, LLC, is taking a $50 million majority stake in privately held Precision Biologics , which is developing tumor-specific monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) and companion diagnostics to treat solid-tumor cancers, the company announced this morning.
Soon-Shiong, Nantworks chief executive officer who was dubbed the world’s richest doctor by Forbes, said in a statement the investment was made due to Precision Biologics’ pipeline of antibody candidates and a “companion diagnostics program that determines which patients are candidates to receive treatment.”
Precision Biologics is leveraging its proprietary library of cancer vaccines to accelerate innovation. NantWorks said marrying that company’s platform with “breakthrough diagnostic and immunotherapy technologies available at NantWorks and NantOmics,” Precision Biologics will develop compounds that “could change the way we detect and treat cancer.”
Precision Biologics antibodies are derived from “proprietary cancer vaccines isolated from surgically removed human tumors,” Precision Biologics’ CEO Philip M. Arlen said in a statement. He said the funding will finance the development of the lead antibodies for the two aforementioned cancers, as well as allow the identification of antibodies for other cancers.
Earlier this year, Precision Biologics recently completed a Phase IIa trial for advanced pancreatic and colorectal cancer. Additionally, the company is enrolling patients in a multi-center randomized Phase IIb trial for advanced pancreatic cancer. Precision Biologics said the therapeutic antibody candidate for pancreatic cancer has demonstrated promising early Phase II data and received Orphan Drug status.
“The mission at NantWorks is the pursuit of neo-epitope driven immunotherapy for cancer. This investment furthers our mission to treat the biology of cancer, independent of the anatomy, and avoid the devastating toxic effects of standard chemotherapy while activating mankind’s innate immune protective system. With a highly experienced management and scientific team, the company will complement NantWorks’ approach to this paradigm shift in the molecular interrogation and treatment of cancer,” said Soon-Shiong, who also owns a stake in the Los Angeles Lakers.
This is not the first time Soon-Shiong’s network has backed cancer development. In May Culver City, Calif.-based NantBioscience, Inc., a division of NantWorks, Soon-Shiong’s umbrella company, reported to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that it had received another $100 million into funding from NantWorks.
Additionally in May, NantWorks acquired cancer treatment Cynviloq after buying a subsidiary of Sorrento Therapeutics, Inc. for more than $1.3 billion.
In addition to NantWorks, Soon-Shiong is also the former founder of Abraxis and American Pharmaceutical Partners, which he sold for a combined $9.1 billion. He also invented the drug Abraxane, for use against pancreatic cancer.
In July NantKwest, another division of NantWorks, had the highest initial public offering of any biotech company that did not have any approved drugs to its name. The company raised approximately $265 million on the sale of 8.3 million shares, giving it a market value of $2.6 billion.
NantKwest’s IPO bested Seattle-based Juno Therapeutics, which posted an IPO of $191 million in December of 2014. While NantKwest topped Juno’s IPO, that company has a market value of more than $4 billion. Juno’s value is likely to increase even higher following Celgene’s acquisition of a $1 billion stake in the Seattle company. In June, the two companies entered into a 10 year collaborative agreement to leverage combined immunology and oncology expertise to develop treatments for cancer and autoimmune diseases. Juno is developing cell-based cancer immunotherapies based on chimeric antigen receptor and high-affinity T cell receptor technologies to genetically engineer T cells to recognize and kill cancer.
NantKwest is developing “the natural killer cell” as a first-line defense in cancer treatment. Natural Killer (NK) cells have the “innate ability to rapidly seek and destroy abnormal cells, such as cancer or virally-infected cells, without prior exposure or activation by other support molecules,” the company said on its website. The company is moving into Phase II clinical trials to use it NK cells as a treatment for Merkel cell carcinoma.
