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David Epstein was ready to retire when an opportunity came along he couldn’t pass up.
Epstein had just sold Seagen, a large cancer drugmaker, to Pfizer for $43 billion and thought it a fitting capstone to a career that included stops at Novartis and Flagship Pioneering. Like others winding down work in the life sciences, Epstein intended to step back and advise up-and-coming drugmakers by joining their boards of directors.
But then Epstein got a call from Francesco de Rubertis, a partner at the venture capital firm Medicxi. De Rubertis was building a company around a medicine with the potential, he believed, to unseat immune-boosting drugs like Merck & Co.’s Keytruda that have revolutionized cancer care over the last decade. A similar medicine, from biotechs Summit Therapeutics and Akeso, beat Keytruda in a head-to-head Phase 3 trial earlier this year. De Rubertis convinced Epstein his startup had something even better.
“When you see a drug that has a possibility of transforming tens of thousands of lives, it’s a big deal,” Epstein said. “I said hey, I can do this. Let’s have some fun.”
Epstein pushed off retirement and took the job. In late October, he became chair and CEO of De Rubertis’ startup, a small drugmaker based in London and Boston, and called Ottimo Pharma. He assembled an executive team and a group of high-powered investors to fund the drug that had caught de Rubertis’ eye. Led by OrbiMed, Avoro Capital and Samsara BioCapital, those investors put $140 million into a Series A round the company announced Thursday.
Ottimo hopes to stand out in what’s become an ultra-competitive area of oncology research. The company is developing a cancer drug that blocks two cellular pathways — PD-1 and VEGF — that are linked to tumors’ ability to grow and evade the immune system. It trails Summit and Akeso, as well as a handful of other biotechs with drug programs in or nearing human testing. Ottimo intends to ask regulators late next year to start its first trial.
Summit and Akeso haven’t yet proven their medicine, ivonescimab, can help people live longer than Keytruda. The Phase 3 trial supporting its benefit also has important limitations. And it’s unclear whether PD-1 and VEGF-blocking medicines will clearly outperform drugs like Keytruda — which target PD-1 alone — against a similarly wide range of tumors. Several promising cancer immunotherapies have disappointed in advanced testing over the past decade.