Belharra Therapeutics Announces Strategic Collaboration with Sanofi to Advance Discovery of Novel Small Molecule Therapeutics for Immunological Diseases

  • Collaboration will leverage Belharra’s proprietary, non-covalent chemoproteomics platform to identify and advance small molecules against Sanofi-designated immunology targets
  • Sanofi to lead further preclinical, clinical and commercial activities of candidates
  • Belharra is eligible to receive up to $40 million in upfront and near-term milestone payments, and up to nearly $700 million in aggregate research, development and commercial milestone payments and royalties on net sales

 

SAN MATEO AND SAN DIEGO, CA, June 18, 2024 — Belharra Therapeutics, a next-generation chemoproteomics company transforming small molecule drug discovery by illuminating binding pockets on elusive, high-value drug targets across the proteome, today announced a strategic collaboration with Sanofi to advance the discovery of novel small molecule therapeutics for immunological diseases. The collaboration will leverage Belharra’s proprietary non-covalent chemoproteomics platform to screen and validate hits against undisclosed Sanofi-designated immunology targets. Belharra is eligible to receive up to $40 million in upfront and near-term milestone payments, with a potential total deal value of up to nearly $700 million in payments over the course of the collaboration in research, development and commercial milestones, as well as tiered royalties on net sales.

“We look forward to combining the powerful capabilities of Belharra’s next-generation chemotherapeutics platform with Sanofi’s vast expertise in immunology research and development as we work together toward discovering new therapeutics for challenging-to-treat diseases,” said Jeff Jonker, CEO of Belharra. “With the ability to illuminate any pocket, on any protein, in any cell type, our platform enables perhaps the broadest and most unbiased chemoproteomic screening capabilities in the industry. Leveraging the platform, we have built a robust internal pipeline focused on oncology and immunology and are thrilled to simultaneously engage with therapeutic area leaders like Sanofi to maximize the platform’s potential to discover a wave of new first-in-class and best-in-class drugs for unmet patient needs.”

“Our collaboration with Belharra demonstrates our efforts to build on our achievements in delivering first-in-class treatments for chronic inflammatory diseases by pushing the science of immunology further to advance new therapeutics that could change patients’ lives,” said John Bertin, Global Head of Immunology and Inflammation Research, Sanofi. “By leveraging Belharra’s chemoproteomics platform, we hope to explore immunology targets that, to date, have been considered undruggable.”

About Belharra’s Platform
Belharra’s platform is designed to enable the industry’s broadest and most unbiased chemoproteomic screening capabilities. The platform leverages a computationally designed library of non-covalent drug-like molecules that use photoaffinity chemistry to identify which proteins bind the molecules as well as the precise binding location on the target proteins. All screens are conducted in a native cellular environment. Using this approach, Belharra is able to illuminate any binding pocket on any protein or protein-protein interaction, in any cell type, yielding insights that enable the discovery of new drugs for well-validated but elusive protein targets as well as novel drug targets.

About Belharra Therapeutics
Belharra Therapeutics, Inc. is a next-generation chemoproteomics company transforming non-covalent small molecule drug discovery by illuminating binding pockets on elusive, high-value targets across the proteome. The company’s proprietary screening platform has the potential to yield a new wave of first-in-class or best-in-class therapeutics to address a broad spectrum of challenging and, to date, intractable diseases.

Guided by a diverse team of biotech trailblazers, Belharra is advancing a pipeline of small molecule drug candidates for well validated targets in oncology and immunology. Complementing its internal discovery efforts, Belharra partners with industry-leading companies, lending the power of its platform to find new starting points for groundbreaking medicines targeting partner-identified proteins across all disease areas while growing the platform’s datasets.

Belharra’s primary lab and offices are in San Diego, California, with an additional presence in the San Francisco Bay Area. To learn more, please visit www.belharratx.com.

Contacts:

Liz Melone
(617) 256-6652
liz@melonecomm.com

Jessi Rennekamp
jessi@astriorcomms.com

Belharra Therapeutics Debuts With $130 Million in Funding

–Next-generation chemoproteomics company launched by Versant Ventures’ Inception Discovery Engine with ability to target any binding site, on any protein, in any cell type–
–Emerges from stealth with a $50 million Series A financing and multi-year collaboration with Genentech providing $80 million up front–

SAN MATEO AND SAN DIEGO, Calif.

Belharra Therapeutics, Inc. today emerged from stealth mode with a novel photoaffinity-based chemoproteomics platform capable of identifying non-covalent, small molecule drug candidates for any protein. The company has secured $130 million in capital, including $50 million in Series A financing from founding investor Versant Ventures and a multi-year collaboration with Genentech, a member of the Roche Group, that will provide $80 million in upfront capital, also announced today. Belharra is the most recent company to emerge from Versant’s Inception Discovery Engine.

Belharra’s integrated chemoproteomic-based drug discovery engine addresses the limitations of traditional screening approaches through a proprietary library of photoaffinity-based chemical probes that explore protein-ligand interactions in the native environment of the cell. The platform utilizes photoaffinity-based labeling to “trap” these unique non-covalent protein-ligand interactions. Coupled with its novel chemoproteomics platform and informatics capabilities, Belharra’s platform identifies probe-protein interactions on a global scale, revealing novel druggable pockets across a complete range of mechanisms, protein classes and cell types. 

While first-generation platforms demonstrated the power of chemoproteomics to illuminate new chemical space, they required specific nucleophilic amino acid residues, such as cysteine, be present on a protein of interest and used probe libraries composed exclusively of electrophilic drug fragments. These are limiting because only a fraction of drug targets have ligandable cysteines and irreversible ligands often have complex development paths. The Belharra photoaffinity platform is not reliant on any specific amino acid for labeling, enabling profiling of the entire proteome. By employing photochemistry to identify probe-protein interactions, the Belharra platform’s underlying mode of binding is non-covalent, providing a much more traditional development path for a drug candidate.

Next-generation chemoproteomics platform

Belharra’s uniquely differentiated platform builds on a legacy of chemoproteomic-based drug discovery to identify functional and actionable non-covalent, small molecule drug candidates for any binding site, on any protein, in any conformational state, in any cell type. The platform enables screens to be run in a whole cell context, which enables the small molecule library to interact with proteins in their native conformations, including protein complexes, which are virtually impossible to recapitulate in traditional biochemical screens. This creates the potential to identify next-generation therapeutics for previously difficult-to-treat conditions. 

“We’ve expanded the power of traditional chemoproteomic screening approaches and integrated them into a single drug discovery engine that enables, for the first time, the ability to target the full range of protein classes and targets,” said Jeff Jonker, CEO of Belharra. “Our platform enables us to rapidly rescreen all of the previously ‘undruggable’ protein targets to identify actionable non-covalent drug-like ligands for functional binding pockets.”

The Belharra platform originated in the laboratories of Christopher G. Parker, Ph.D., John Teijaro, Ph.D., and Ben Cravatt, Ph.D., at Scripps Research. There, Drs. Parker and Cravatt developed a novel photoaffinity-based chemoproteomics technology to enable screening for small molecules that bind proteins in their native context and focused it on immunology targets leveraging the expertise of Dr. Teijaro. Stuart Schreiber of the Broad Institute joined as a co-founder to refine and industrialize the platform for broad therapeutic application.

During Belharra’s formative stage, the team at Scripps worked alongside Belharra’s scientists and scientists at Versant’s San Diego-based discovery engine, Inception Therapeutics, to industrialize the technology and build a proprietary library of small molecule photoaffinity probes with superior drug-like properties. Based on targeted and phenotypic screens run by Scripps and Belharra, Belharra expects to advance internal discovery candidates for both Oncology and Immunology indications in 2023.

“Having been involved in a number of important companies in the chemical proteomics field, we have high conviction that Belharra represents a new wave of innovation in the space,” said Tom Woiwode, Ph.D., Managing Director at Versant and a Belharra board member. “We are very excited to be working with Jeff, Gary and the company’s world-class scientific founders to advance medicines for previously intractable targets and diseases.”

Leadership team and scientific founders

Belharra is led by experienced executives bolstered by scientific founders with deep expertise in chemoproteomics, chemical biology, and drug discovery.

  • Jeff Jonker, CEO 
    • Mr. Jonker is a veteran biotech executive with extensive experience in operational, strategic, business development and legal roles across public and private companies. Prior to joining Belharra, Jeff led Ambys Medicines as President and CEO from 2018 to 2020. Prior to Ambys, Jeff served as President of NGM Biopharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ: NGM) where he established the Merck partnership, grew the organization into a fully integrated clinical development company and guided the creation of the company’s robust pipeline, including therapeutics for immuno-oncology, retinal, liver, and metabolic diseases. Jeff previously held leadership roles at Theravance Biopharma, Gloucester Pharmaceuticals and Genentech.
  • Gary O’Neill, Ph.D., CSO 
    • Dr. O’Neill is a seasoned biotech executive and talented scientific leader with a successful track record across several accomplished research-driven organizations. Over his career, Gary was responsible for translating dozens of research projects into clinical trials and contributing to the approval of multiple new medicines. Prior to joining Belharra, Gary led the Lundbeck La Jolla Research Center as Site Head. Prior to Lundbeck, Gary served as the Chief Scientific Officer at Abide Therapeutics, which was acquired by Lundbeck in 2019. Before joining Abide in 2013, Gary served as the VP and Site Head of Merck Research Laboratories – Boston. He spent the early part of his career at Merck Frosst and Merck Sharp & Dohme where he held various scientific leadership roles.
  • Rachel Lane, Ph.D., Interim CBO
    • Dr. Lane is an investor at Versant Ventures and business development executive with over 10 years’ experience leading R&D collaborations and portfolio strategy across the biotech industry. Prior to joining Versant, Rachel was Director, Business Development at Calico Life Sciences where she established several external partnerships and led the company into a new therapeutic area. Prior to Calico, she was Sr. Director of Business Development at Ovid Therapeutics. Rachel started her career in non-profit at the Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation leading early-stage investments before joining Wall Street as a Research Analyst.
  • Chris Parker, Ph.D., scientific founder 
    • Dr. Parker is an Associate Professor in the Department of Chemistry at Scripps Research. His research focuses on developing chemistry-enabled strategies to investigate human biology and disease pathology. Research at Dr. Parker’s lab integrates organic synthesis with chemical proteomics and cell/molecular biology to study how small molecules might regulate, or be designed to regulate, complex biological processes such as immune responses, and to illuminate molecular mechanisms that contribute to disease.
  • John Teijaro, Ph.D., scientific founder 
    • Dr. Teijaro is a Professor in the Department of Immunology and Microbiology at Scripps Research. During Dr. Teijaro’s graduate and post-graduate training, his research specialized in molecular and temporal immunologic features linked to viral infection and autoimmunity, publishing many papers on costimulation and cytokine activation in the laboratories of Donna Farber and Michael Oldstone, respectively. As an independent investigator, Dr Teijaro is recognized as a world leader in viral immunology and cytokine biology with breakthrough research that is leading to new concepts for the immunotherapy of cancer as well a deeper understanding of the immunology of viral infections including COVID-19.
  • Benjamin Cravatt, Ph.D., scientific founder
    • Dr. Cravatt is the Gilula Chair of Chemical Biology and Professor in the Department of Chemistry at Scripps Research. His research group develops and applies chemical proteomic technologies for protein and drug discovery on a global scale and has particular interest in studying biochemical pathways in the nervous system and cancer. Dr. Cravatt is a co-founder of multiple successful biotech companies. His honors include a Searle Scholar Award, the Eli Lilly Award in Biological Chemistry, a Cope Scholar Award, the ASBMB Merck Award, the Royal Society of Chemistry Jeremy Knowles Award, and memberships in the National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Medicine, and American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
  • Stuart Schreiber, Ph.D., scientific founder 
    • Dr. Schreiber has been a founding core member of the Broad Institute since 2003. He was the founding director in 1997 of Harvard’s Institute of Chemistry and Cell Biology, which provided the origins of the Broad Institute’s Chemical Biology Program and which has since been incorporated into the Chemical Biology and Therapeutic Sciences (CBTS) Program. Dr. Schreiber’s research integrates chemical biology and human biology to advance both our understanding of chemistry and biology and the discovery of novel therapeutics. He is known for his use of small molecules to explore biology and medicine, and for his role in the development of the field of chemical biology.

About Belharra Therapeutics

Belharra Therapeutics, Inc. is a privately held drug discovery company pioneering a novel photoaffinity-based chemoproteomics platform to disrupt the drug discovery paradigm. Guided by a diverse team of biotech trailblazers, Belharra’s proprietary discovery engine is uniquely capable of identifying novel, non-covalent small molecule starting points for developing transformative medicines to address previously difficult-to-treat diseases and conditions. The company’s next generation chemoproteomics platform enables Belharra scientists to identify small molecule drug candidates for any binding site, on any protein, in any conformational state, in any cell type. Originating with Christopher G. Parker, Ph.D. and John Teijaro, Ph.D. at Scripps Research and pioneers in the field of chemical biology and serial biotech founders Benjamin Cravatt, Ph.D. at Scripps Research and Stuart Schreiber, Ph.D. at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, the four co-founded Belharra Therapeutics in 2021 with a $50M Series A financing from Versant Ventures and incubation at Inception Therapeutics. Belharra is headquartered in the San Francisco Bay Area with its primary lab and offices in San Diego, California. To learn more, please visit www.belharratx.com.

About Versant Ventures

Versant Ventures is a leading healthcare venture capital firm committed to helping exceptional entrepreneurs build the next generation of great companies. The firm’s emphasis is on biotechnology companies that are discovering and developing novel therapeutics. With $4.2 billion under management and offices in the U.S., Canada and Europe, Versant has built a team with deep investment, operating and R&D expertise that enables a hands-on approach to company building. Since the firm’s founding in 1999, more than 85 Versant companies have achieved successful acquisitions or IPOs. For more information, please visit www.versantventures.com.

Contact:
Steve Edelson
415-801-8088
sedelson@versantventures.com

Belharra Therapeutics Announces Broad Collaboration with Genentech to Discover and Develop Novel Medicines Across Multiple Therapeutic Areas

SAN MATEO AND SAN DIEGO, Calif.

Belharra Therapeutics, a privately held drug discovery company with a novel photoaffinity-based, non-covalent chemoproteomics platform, today announced a multi-year collaboration with Genentech, a member of the Roche Group. The companies will collaborate employing Belharra’s proprietary platform to discover and develop small molecule medicines in multiple therapeutic areas including oncology, immuno-oncology, autoimmune, and neurodegenerative diseases.

Belharra’s innovative platform builds on a legacy of chemoproteomics drug discovery to identify functional and actionable small molecule ligands for protein targets using a unique approach to capture the interaction of tagged compounds with the human proteome. The company’s proprietary screening library enables Belharra scientists to identify any binding site, on any protein, in any conformational state, in any cell type.

Under the terms of the agreement, Belharra will be responsible for discovery and early preclinical development of small molecules against Genentech’s designated targets, while Genentech will be responsible for late preclinical, clinical, and regulatory development, and commercialization of such small molecules. In return, Belharra will receive an upfront cash payment of $80 million. Over the course of the collaboration, Belharra is eligible to receive development, commercial, and net sales milestones that could exceed $2 billion and a tiered royalty on Genentech’s sale of collaboration products.

For certain oncology or immunology programs to be designated by Genentech, Belharra will have an option to co-develop such programs’ compounds through Phase 1 and to co-fund the remaining development of those programs’ compounds in exchange for a US cost/profit split and ex-US milestone payments and royalties.

“We are excited to work with Genentech and leverage its industry-leading biological acumen to develop novel drug candidates for key therapeutic targets across a range of severe diseases for which patients currently lack adequate treatments,” said Jeff Jonker, CEO of Belharra. “Genentech is long recognized for its dedicated pursuit of groundbreaking science to illuminate the drivers of disease and enable the discovery and development of transformational medicines. This collaboration further underscores the promise of Belharra’s novel platform to advance that cause.”

“Our collaboration with Belharra gives Genentech access to a drug invention platform that allows us to interrogate important therapeutic pathways and targets that we strongly believe drive disease pathogenesis, but have proven to be inaccessible to conventional approaches,” said James Sabry, MD, PhD, Global Head of Pharma Partnering at Roche. “Partnering with early-stage companies like Belharra provides Genentech with yet another way to advance groundbreaking science to discover and develop medicines for patients with serious and life-threatening diseases.”

About Belharra Therapeutics

Belharra Therapeutics, Inc. is a privately held drug discovery company pioneering a novel photoaffinity-based chemoproteomics platform to disrupt the drug discovery paradigm. Guided by a diverse team of biotech trailblazers, Belharra’s proprietary discovery engine is uniquely capable of identifying novel, non-covalent small molecule starting points for developing transformative medicines to address previously difficult-to-treat diseases and conditions. The company’s next generation chemoproteomics platform enables Belharra scientists to identify small molecule drug candidates for any binding site, on any protein, in any conformational state, in any cell type. Originating with Christopher G. Parker, Ph.D. and John Teijaro, Ph.D. at Scripps Research and pioneers in the field of chemical biology and serial biotech founders Benjamin Cravatt, Ph.D. at Scripps Research and Stuart Schreiber, Ph.D. at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, the four co-founded Belharra Therapeutics in 2021 with a $50M Series A financing from Versant Ventures and incubation at Inception Therapeutics. Belharra is headquartered in the San Francisco Bay Area with its primary lab and offices in San Diego, California. To learn more, please visit www.belharratx.com.

Contact:
Steve Edelson
415-801-8088
sedelson@versantventures.com