UK-based Ignota Labs has acquired all of the clinical-stage assets in Kronos Bio’s pipeline, after the US company ceased operations earlier this year.
Ignota specialises in turning around promising but failing drug candidates, using an AI platform to identify why projects fail – focusing primarily on toxicity issues – and come up with strategies to bring them back to life.
In preclinical and clinical studies, safety assessments typically reveal what went wrong – such as liver damage or heart issues – but fail to explain why these issues occurred, or how they might be mitigated.
Combining AI-powered cheminformatics and bioinformatics, Ignota’s SAFEPATH platform identifies the root causes of safety issues and works out how to solve them whilst maintaining a drug’s therapeutic efficacy.
Kronos had a valuation of $3.5 billion at its height, but suffered a series of setbacks, including the termination of lead candidate istisociclib for ovarian cancer last year, after clinical trials revealed neurological side effects with the CDK9 inhibitor.
Cambridge-based Ignota has acquired the rights to istisociclib and a pair of SYK inhibitors, entospletinib and lanraplenib, that were in phase 3 and phase 1b clinical development, respectively, for acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) before they were shelved.
“We are acquiring assets that have demonstrated therapeutic effect, but failed in their development and were shelved despite tens of millions of dollars already invested in them,” explained Ignota’s co-founder and chief executive, Sam Windsor.
“This is where Ignota Labs come in: unlocking value by turning around failing drugs so that they can quickly get back into clinical trials and bring fresh hope to the patients waiting for these drugs.”
Kronos was bought out earlier this year for a knockdown price of around $35 million by serial biotech acquisition specialist Concentra Biosciences, which has now handed on the company’s main assets to Ignota in return for a modest upfront fee and certain undisclosed milestone payments tied to clinical development targets.
Ignota’s process will now assess the Kronos assets to identify and solve the causes of toxicity and develop them “clinically and commercially,” said the UK firm, which raised seed funding of $6.9 million earlier this year for its first in-licensed asset, a PDE9A inhibitor with potential in cardiovascular, metabolic, and neurodegenerative diseases.
Concentra – which specialises in picking up struggling companies – also bought iTeos Therapeutics, Elevation Oncology, and CARGO Therapeutics earlier this year, and Theseus Pharma and Jounce Therapeutics in 2023.
