Deal focus: Singapore biotech start-up generates US buzz

Hodgkin’s lymphoma is traditionally treated with chemotherapy, radiation therapy, and stem cell transplants that, even when successful, can lead to the aggravation of other cancers. The best alternatives to date – which use antibodies in the blood – have been 20% to 30% effective.

In early trialling, the lead antibody candidate from Singapore’s Tessa Therapeutics has demonstrated a 57% complete response rate, which effectively means that almost six in 10 patients see their cancer disappear. The technique – based on reengineering blood cells to fight cancer – appears at least partially effective for 70% of patients.

“This is very different, looking at your immune cells and genetically modifying them with a heat-seeking missile for the cancer itself,” said acting CEO and CTO John Ng. “It’s then infused back into you, where it can target without any off-tumour toxicity. It’s not like chemotherapy, which attacks the rest of the healthy cells. It only attacks the cancer.”

Tessa raised a USD 126m Series A funding round this week led by US healthcare specialist Polaris Partners. Singapore’s Temasek Holdings, EDBI, Heliconia Capital, and Heritas Capital, which provided a USD 80m seed round in 2017, re-upped.

The capital will be applied to an ongoing phase-two trial, which if all goes well should be sufficient validation for US regulatory approval and commercialisation. Ng estimates his company’s lead Hodgkin’s product could be in the market by 2025.

Tessa started out in 2011 chasing treatments for a mix of common cancers but settled on Hodgkin’s after achieving outstanding results in preliminary studies at Baylor College of Medicine in the US. Malcolm Brenner, the founding director of Baylor’s gene therapy centre, is one of Tessa’s scientific advisors.

“We felt that it was important to start attracting US institutional investors, and Polaris is really a good beginning,” said CFO Wilson Cheung, who joined the company in April. “By the fourth quarter or early in the first quarter of next year, when we start having some new catalysts coming out, we would love to attract additional US investors so we can prepare ourselves eventually for a US IPO.”

Polaris could indeed prove a well-chosen beachhead for continued US exposure, as two of its managing partners, Amy Schulman and Darren Carrol, join the Tessa board. They are adamant that another round should be raised before the IPO and confident they can bring in big-name connections for support.

Schulman is best known as the former president of Pfizer Nutrition, which she helped sell to Nestle for USD 11.8bn in 2012. Carrol spent 22 years with pharmaceuticals company Eli Lilly, where he presided over the two largest investments in its 145-year history. He went on to set up Lilly Ventures in 2002 and Lilly Asia Ventures in 2008.

“I had the opportunity to sit on a board meeting with [Schulman and Carrol]. They are very impactful,” Cheung added.

“They come in, they know exactly what the agenda is and ask for clinical updates, when we think the timetable is for the next catalyst items to show up, and then we should start planning the next financing. They are very proactive individuals compared to many other board members I’ve dealt with in the past.”

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• Topics
• Southeast Asia
• Healthcare
• Technology
• Early-stage
• Temasek Holdings
• EDBI
• Heritas Capital
• Pharmaceuticals