Enlaza Therapeutics raised $100 million to develop permanently binding antibody-drug conjugates for cancer with a goal of bringing them into the first-ever human studies.
The company announced Tuesday that the Series A round was led by JP Morgan’s Life Sciences Private Capital, which was formed in late 2022 to invest in early-stage biotech companies. Enlaza is the firm’s first disclosed investment.
The biotech launched from stealth in 2022 with a substantial $61 million seed raise to develop covalent biologics, which are medicines made from proteins that can bind permanently. Typically, proteins use weaker noncovalent bonds to link to each other. While a covalent bond is like two molecules interlocking fingers, a noncovalent bond is more like Michelangelo’s famous painting The Creation of Adam, in which the molecules — like God and Adam’s fingers — are slightly apart.
Enlaza is a play on the Spanish word enlazar, which means “to link.” Though several companies are developing covalent small molecule drugs, which are compounds that typically can be made into pills, Enlaza is one of the few, if not the only, doing so with biologics.
Enlaza CEO Sergio Duron emphasized that the approach leverages the high selectivity of antibodies while keeping the drug close to cancer cells and away from healthy cells.
The biotech was built on research from the University of California, San Francisco and the Scripps Research Institute that was led by UCSF professor Lei Wang. Using so-called unnatural amino acids — protein building blocks synthesized in a lab — scientists developed antibodies that could bind covalently.
Enlaza’s initial mission is to develop safer, more effective antibody-drug conjugates to treat cancer. It plans to use its $100 million raise to select drug candidates that it will bring to human trials and then generate initial clinical trial data around its treatments. Duron said the company plans to develop antibody-drug conjugates around “validated targets,” though he declined to disclose what ADC programs the company is pursuing.
Currently one of the hottest modalities in cancer drug development, antibody-drug conjugates use an antibody to deliver a toxic drug, such as chemotherapy, to tumor cells to kill them.
Stephen SquintoHowever, current treatments come with significant safety concerns, including blood cell toxicities and scarring in the lungs. An antibody that binds permanently could keep the drug from circulating in the blood for weeks at a time, said Stephen Squinto, chief investment officer for JP Morgan Life Sciences Private Capital.
As with every first, there are uncertainties. “That covalent bond and keeping that payload, which is there to destroy the tumor constantly and permanently, has to be a theoretical advantage for now,” Squinto said. “But we won’t really know that until we get deep into clinical development.”
JP Morgan’s big biotech bet
Squinto, a longtime biotech executive who co-founded Alexion, joined Enlaza’s board with the Series A round.
Squinto’s team has met with over 1,000 companies since the group’s inception, according to JP Morgan. It’s invested in five companies, though Enlaza is the only investment that’s been disclosed.
“If it’s not going to be impactful, it’s not for us,” Squinto said.
He declined to comment on how much money JP Morgan invested in the company.
Other investors in the round include Frazier Life Sciences, Avalon Ventures, Lightspeed Venture Partners and Samsara BioCapital, as well as the venture arms of Amgen and Regeneron.