A British biotech based in Cambridge, England, raised $86 million to advance an antibody drug designed to deplete protein deposits in people with amyloidosis.

A British biotech based in Cambridge, England, raised $86 million to advance an antibody drug designed to deplete protein deposits in people with amyloidosis.

The company, called Immutrin, was co-founded by Gregory Winter. He won the 2018 Nobel Prize in Chemistry along with two other scientists for pioneering a lab technique known as “phage display” to develop new proteins, including therapeutic antibodies. Academics Mark Pepys and Daniel Christ were also involved in founding Immutrin.

The biotech’s approach is largely based on Pepys’ work, but  Winter was “instrumental in terms of precisely engineering the antibody to the specifications that we needed,” Immutrin CEO Mihriban Tuna told Endpoints News.

That unnamed antibody is now in preclinical development for a form of amyloidosis called ATTR cardiomyopathy, which affects the heart. It targets the disease in a “very unique” way compared to available treatments like Pfizer’s Vyndaqel and BridgeBio’s Attruby, Tuna said. Vyndaqel and Attruby stop the disease getting worse by preventing the production of further amyloid fibrils. By contrast, Immutrin’s candidate is designed to selectively bind to fibrils that have already formed in the heart, removing them by inducing a targeted immune response.

“It actually offers the possibility for reversing disease, rather than simply slowing down progression,” Tuna said. The two approaches could even be used in combination, she said.

Immutrin is working to start its proof-of-concept trial “as soon as possible.” While the biotech is currently focused on ATTR cardiomyopathy, it could also address other forms of amyloidosis in the future, including rarer types for which there are no approved treatments, Tuna said.

Frazier Life Sciences led the Series A funding round, and F-Prime Capital, Qiming Venture Partners and SR One also invested. The company’s founding investors, Cambridge Innovation Capital and Cambridge Enterprise Ventures, chipped in as well.