Massachusetts biotech Blend Therapeutics just raked in $21 million to advance its a new, and rather interesting, class of cancer therapeutics.
It’s using the dollars to grow its Pentarin platform, which creates novel, miniature biologic drug conjugates that are encapsulated in nanoparticles. The funding will also help advance a separate drug candidate, BTP-114, closer to the clinic. This drug introduces platinum to a tumor site – a metal with anticancer capabilities.
Here’s how Blend says Pentarin works: The nanoparticle allows the drug to focus in on the tumor site in a concentrated volume, and the mini-BDCs penetrate efficiently into the tumor tissue.
It also just licensed technology from another (as-yet-unnamed) biotech for novel bi-podal biologic targeting ligands – an exclusive license for cancer that Blend says is a strategic asset to expand the Pentarin platform. These ligands help target the tumor itself – so that a “cell-killing payload” is released inside the cancer cells, Blend said in a release.
The company plans to conduct IND-enabling studies to advance its lead Pentarin drug program, BTP-277, and finish up IND-enabling studies of its novel, personalized cisplatin, BTP-114.
“Pentarins are an entirely new class of biologic drug conjugates specifically designed for solid tumors, and represent a significant advance in the field since the first development of antibody drug conjugates 35 years ago,” Richard Wooster, Blend’s president of R&D, said in a statement. “We have created Pentarins to have a unique structure, miniaturization and nanoparticle encapsulation that enable the selective targeting of cancer cells and unprecedented penetration deep into tumor tissue, with the aim to improve the treatment of solid tumor cancers for patients.”
On top of the new flush of cash, Blend’s raised $39.8 million to date from investors like New Enterprise Associates, Flagship Ventures, NanoDimension and Eminent Venture Capital. The science comes from professors at Harvard Medical School, Brigham and Women’s Hospital and MIT.
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