Romosozumab-AQQG

Angitia Biopharmaceuticals, a California and China biotech developing musculoskeletal biologics, has closed a $120 million Series C led by Bain Capital Life Sciences, the drug developer exclusively told Endpoints News . The 83-employee biotech will put the capital to work on an ongoing Phase 3 trial in China and two global Phase 2 studies. The financing comes about 10 months after Angitia — named after the Goddess of healing — had done another extension to its Series B. The company has now raised a total of $330 million. CEO David Ke founded Angitia in June 2018 after helping lead UCB and Amgen’s romosozumab toward approval. The FDA greenlit the osteoporosis drug in 2019 as Evenity . Prior to his three-year stint at UCB, Ke spent about a decade at Amgen. It was there that he collaborated with Willard Dere, who also worked on four anti-osteoporosis drugs and led Amgen’s global clinical development. Ke is the “best bone biologist in industry,” Dere said in an interview. That’s why he wanted Ke to join him at Amgen. Both would go on to leave Amgen in 2014. Dere returned to academia at the University of Utah and took up board seats at BioMarin, Mersana, Seres and Metagenomi. Ke would go on to a VP role at UCB. Then, after years of tinkering with the idea of starting a company, he launched Angitia. A small, focused biotech would be more efficient and more his speed than big pharma. Ke set up a discovery shop in Guangzhou, China, and a clinical development team in Woodland Hills, CA. Then, two years ago, Dere reunited with Ke as chief medical officer of Angitia. Now, they’re full speed ahead with a fully enrolled Phase 3 in China for AGA111, which is being tested for patients with degenerative disc disease who are undergoing a lumbar interbody fusion. The company has started talks with the FDA about potential studies in the US, but the discussions aren’t finalized and Angitia hasn’t made any concrete decisions yet on the future of the biologic, Ke said. The biotech also has two bispecific antibodies targeting sclerostin and DKK1. The lead one, AGA2118, just entered Phase 2 for post-menopausal women with low bone mass as a potential treatment for osteoporosis, an area with which Ke and Dere are quite familiar. The third clinical-stage asset is dubbed AGA2115. It recently completed a Phase 1 healthy volunteer trial that will have data in the first quarter of 2025 and will move into Phase 2 by the end of next year for osteogenesis imperfecta, Ke said. The Series C financing will get Angitia all the way through the Phase 2 studies and give it flexibility on needing to raise additional capital, Ke said. The biotech will likely seek a pharma partner for a Phase 3 and beyond in osteoporosis , the CEO said. In its discovery labs, Angitia’s scientists are also exploring additional muscle programs and cartilage regeneration targets, Ke said. In the muscle arena, that could include muscle diseases, aging-related muscle loss or therapeutic-induced muscle loss, he added. The latter has been seen with the blockbuster GLP-1 class, and obesity drugmakers are racing to make medicines that preserve muscle, or lean body mass, during the weight-loss process. The financing was led by Bain’s life sciences team, which disclosed a $3 billion fourth fund in September. Angitia is one of multiple biotechs with operations in China that Bain has supported over the years. It’s invested in Beijing oncology biotech Avistone and CNS-focused Tenacia Biotechnology , and it’s helped set up new companies like Kailera and Aiolos to in-license assets from Hengrui and develop the experimental medicines on a broader scale. Joining Bain was new investor Janus Henderson and existing backers like OrbiMed, 3H Health Investment, Legend Capital, Elikon Venture and Yonghua Capital.