January 17, 2017
By Mark Terry, BioSpace.com Breaking News Staff
Hamburg, Germany-based Evotech AG (EVT) and Toronto, Ontario-based MaRS Innovation announced today the launch of Fibrocor Therapeutics. Located in Toronto, Fibrocor will focus on developing therapeutics for fibrotic diseases.
Fibrocor was launched with $2.1 million (US) in financing, including cash from MaRS Innovation. MaRS Innovation was established in 2008 and is supported by the Government of Ontario via the Ontario Centres of Excellence. It has a portfolio of more than 60 companies and is a nonprofit organization.
“We are building on our recent success of Triphase in the area of oncology and applying it to a new therapeutic cluster in the area of fibrosis,” said Rafi Hofstein, MaRS’ president and chief executive officer, in a statement. “Through Fibrocor we have created a transformational partnership with Evotec to translate Toronto’s world-class fibrosis expertise into therapies for patients worldwide.”
Triphase Accelerator is one of MaRS’s portfolio companies. In November 2016, Triphase sold its cancer compound, marizomib, to Celgene . Marizomib is a proteasome inhibitor under development for the treatment of glioblastoma and relapsed and/or refractory multiple myeloma.
Under that deal, Celgene made an upfront payment as well as various milestone payments.
Fibrocor’s scientific co-founders include Richard Gilbert, Canada Research Chair in Diabetic Complications and Head of Endocrinology at St. Michael’s Hospital and scientist with the hospital’s Keenan Research Centre for Biomedical Science. Also, Darren Yuen, nephrologist with St. Michael’s and scientist with its Keenan Research Centre for Biomedical Science. They are joined by Jeff Wrana, senior investigator at Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute, Sinai Health System.
Gilbert was the co-founder of Australian Fibrotech. That company was acquired in 2014 by Shire for $75 million, as well as its Phase Ib fibrosis lead product, FT011, and other fibrosis candidates. Darren Yuen holds patent applications for the Slit protein ligand of the Robo receptor, which is an anti-fibrotic compound. Wrana recently identified two pathways related to the antifibrotic activity of verteporfin, which was recently approved for are-related macular degeneration (AMD).
Fibrocor already has a lead program and plans to partner with Evotech to develop novel molecules. It hopes to have a lead candidate in 2018. It also plans to collaborate with its academic co-founders on expanding access to tissue samples, including lung, liver, kidney, colon and skin.
Its approach is to use high-throughput molecular analysis on fibrotic tissue infrastructure, as well as to leverage expertise in clinically-predictive animal models of fibrosis.
“Fibrosis continues to be an area of huge unmet medical need,” said Mario Polywka, Evotec’s chief operating officer, in a statement. “Combining Fibrocor’s ability to identify novel disease relevant targets and Evotec’s industry-leading drug discovery platform should greatly increase the probability of delivering effective medicines for patients. We are delighted to be a part of the launch of Fibrocor together with MaRS Innovation and look forward to working with our new partners in this exciting venture.”
Evotech describes itself as “a drug discovery and development partnership company focused on rapidly progressing innovative product approaches with leading pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, academics, patient advocacy groups and venture capitalists.” It has a broad pipeline of more than 70 partnered products. Its long-term discovery alliances include Bayer , CHDI, Sanofi or UCB, Janssen Pharmaceuticals, a Johnson & Johnson company, Pfizer and Celgene .
