Arix prepares push for new oncological approaches

Arix is fresh from a $71m public listing for its cancer immunotherapy portfolio company Harpoon Therapeutics in February, and now hopes to find new oncology approaches to drive further growth, as the market for cell and gene cancer medicines becomes more crowded.
Jonathan Tobin, an investment director at Arix specialised in biotechnology said: “Everyone is going to be interested in oncology as an area – at least 40%, if not half, of all deal flow in venture is oncology and the same is true for clinical trials and drug approvals. There is not ever going to be a slowdown in research dollars both academic and industrial in oncology. But I think the challenge is finding new areas that are likely to work. One approach has been to go after very niche populations with tiny markets that have very high probability of success, versus immunological approaches with potentially broad application but very low probability of success.”
Tobin believes Arix will reap dividends blending the two approaches, looking to programs that address specific cancer populations while demonstrating efficacy beyond a particular genetic mutation.
Areas of interest in this regard include DNA damage response, multi-specific antibody treatments, next-generation chimeric antigen receptor therapies, synthetic methylation and antibody-drug conjugates. “These are just examples, where there are not only defined populations large enough to be commercially interesting, but where we think there is a real mechanistic rationale for why you would have clinical benefit.”
Formed in 2016, Arix Bioscience is younger than many of its life science investment peers. The company tends to lead or co-lead transactions, as such playing a central role pulling together syndicates with enough financial resources to fund the investee’s path-to-market.
As a younger firm, Tobin claimed Arix Bioscience was also better incentivised to assist portfolio businesses in a manner sympathetic to the management’s point-of-view, while largely resisting interfering in day-to-day operations.
He said: “We take a board seat in all our companies, and we tend to take the side of management because obviously investor directors are there to act in the interest of the company, not just the interests of the firm they are representing. We are quite serious about helping all of our management teams where we can, and that includes making connections to pharmaceutical companies – in fact four of Arix’s investors are big pharma companies.
“We always help make introductions to potential co-investors, to collaborators we meet through our global biotech and academic networks, to potential executives for the company, advisory board members and to independent non-executives. And then we help the portfolio company in discussions with potential partners and acquirers later down the line.
“As a new firm we strive to be collaborative and helpful board members. We have found that management and founders react well to an approach that is straightforward, while also being commercial.”
Tobin previously spent more than five years from 2011 until 2016 with Imperial Innovations, the tech transfer operation of Imperial College London, focused on company creation and early-stage investments in UK-based biotech developers. And while it has only been little more than three years since Tobin’s time there, the changes in the life sciences have been significant.
“The landscape has definitely changed for the better – there is a lot more funding available, which means projects can be funded more generously and progressed more aggressively. It has been great because early-stage companies even in Europe are able to attract world-class management, often from the experienced big pharma executives, who are now more willing to take a risk in a small company because the company has more runway and solid backing.
“More funding with the right management is better for the science and means more novel assets will get derisked and ultimately partnered with pharma. And therefore, we will see and are seeing novel modalities make it all the way to market, and I think that is largely because of the more active and aggressive funding landscape.”