Iambic Therapeutics Secures $100M Series B Financing Led by Ascenta Capital and Abingworth with Participation from NVIDIA and Sequoia to Advance AI-Discovered Drug Candidates into Clinical Trials

Oct 07, 2023 17:40 CST Updated 17:40

Iambic Therapeutics

Small Molecule Therapy Developer

Eastern Time on October 4, Iambic Therapeutics (formerly known as Entos), a biotechnology company headquartered in San Diego, California, which utilizes its generative artificial intelligence discovery platform to develop novel therapies, has completed$100 Million Series B Financing。

This round of financing was co-led by Ascenta Capital and Abingworth, with new investors NVIDIAIllumina Ventures, Gradiant Corporation, and independent board member Bill Rastetter are involved.Existing investors also participated, including Nexus Ventures, Catalio Capital Management, Coatue, FreeFlow, OrbiMed andSequoia Capital。

As part of its Series B financing, Iambic Therapeutics has added Dr. Evan Rachlin from Ascenta Capital and Kurt von Emster from Abingworth to its board of directors.

The 8th Company Invested by NVIDIA

It is reported that this isNVIDIA In 2023ComeThe 8th AI Pharmaceutical Company Invested In。

Iambic Plans to use the funds to advance multiple drug candidates into clinical development, expand its pipeline with other candidates that have best-in-class and first-in-class potential, and continue innovating and building next-generation drug discovery through artificial intelligence and automation technologies.

It plans to leverage NVIDIA technologies such as the NVIDIA DGX Cloud AI supercomputing platform and NVIDIA BioNeMo cloud service to accelerate discovery.

Iambic Therapeutics, led by co-founder and CEO Dr. Tom Miller, leverages an AI-driven drug discovery platform to rapidly deliver therapeutic drugs to the clinic across multiple target categories and mechanisms of action.

Fig: Iambic AI Platform

Since its $53 million Series A financing in 2021, Iambic Therapeutics has built an AI-driven discovery platform., the platformCombining Physical Information Machine Learning with Experimental Automation, and demonstrated the platform's success in identifying candidate therapeutics with differentiated drug profiles.

Two pipelines are about to enter clinical trials

In addition to building a lineup of AI and drug discovery experts, Iambic Therapeutics has identified two clinical-stage drug candidates.IAM-H1 and IAM-C1。

IAM-H1 is a potent and irreversible tyrosine kinase inhibitor (TKI)., selectively targeting HER2 and HER2 mutants without affecting EGFR. The amplification and mutation of HER2 lead to various human cancers. The success of HER2 TKIs has been limited due to compensatory mechanisms that raise the required therapeutic index beyond what current pan-ERBB and HER2 inhibitors can achieve.
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IAM-H1 Exhibits Effects on EGFRMore than 1000 timesSelective, good PK and safety, preferential tumor enrichment, and effective CNS exposure. These collectively make IAM-H1 a breakthrough molecule that can achieve the full therapeutic potential of inhibiting HER2 signaling while avoiding EGFR-driven toxicity.

In vivo, IAM-H1 demonstrated favorable efficacy and tolerability across a range of HER2 tumor models, including intracranial models, surpassing benchmark TKIs and antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs).
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A multicenter Phase I trial is planned to begin dosing patients in early 2024.

IAM-C1 is a potential first-class selective dual CDK2/4 inhibitor, which can address the unmet needs in treatment windows and therapeutic resistance for cell cycle-driven cancers.

IAM-C1 is a first-class small molecule inhibitor specifically targeting CDK2 and CDK4, two cell cycle kinases that are frequently dysregulated in various cancers. By selectively inhibiting CDK2/4 while sparing other closely related CDKs (including CDK1, CDK6, and CDK9), IAM-C1 has the potential to offer greater therapeutic benefits compared to clinically approved CDK4/6 inhibitors.

IAM-C1 represents a promising new approach to addressing cell cycle dysregulation in cancer, built on two decades of research and clinical experience. CDK4/6 inhibitors are the standard treatment for first-line and subsequent therapy in patients with HR+/HER2- metastatic breast cancer (mBC).

Despite the success of these drugs, many patients exhibit intrinsic or acquired resistance to approved CDK4/6 inhibitors. HR+/HER2- mBC remains a significant cause of morbidity and mortality, leading to unmet patient needs.

IAM-C1 A more targeted approach offers a more favorable safety profile by reducing dose-limiting toxicities associated with non-CDK2/4 kinases, including CDK6.

Reference link:

https://www.fiercebiotech.com/biotech/iambic-ups-rhythm-ai-enabled-race-clinic-revealing-100m-round-and-nvidia-pact

https://www.iambic.ai/pipeline

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