Timing is Everything; Tempo Raises Series A

Now that Tempo has raised a $12.1 million Series A round from Polaris, Venrock, Lux Capital and former Biogen Idec Inc. Chairman William Rastetter, PhD, the company is on the way toward solving a tricky drug delivery problem

Polaris Venture Partners has done quite well with what might broadly be called pharmaceutical technologies—businesses based on drug delivery and reformulation, rather than discovery. Their secret weapon: the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and, in particular, researcher Robert Langer, ScD.

Now they’re turning the crank again, though this time Langer is merely a key MIT connection (and a board member).

In December 2006, Polaris seeded Tempo Pharmaceuticals Inc. based around an exclusive license to so-called Nanocell technology from the MIT lab of Ram Sasisekharan, PhD. Joining at the same time: CEO Alan Crane, a venture partner at Polaris and the former CEO of another Polaris/MIT/Langer connection, Momenta Pharmaceuticals Inc. "It’s a wonderful collaboration and this is the next act," says Polaris co-founder and managing general partner Terry McGuire. (See "Embracing Early-Stage Platform Opportunities at Polaris Ventures," START-UP, February 2007 (Also see "Embracing Early-Stage Platform Opportunities at Polaris Ventures" - Scrip, 1 Feb, 2007.).)

Now that it’s raised a $12.1 million Series A round from Polaris, Venrock, Lux Capital and former Biogen Idec Inc. chairman William Rastetter, PhD, the company is on the way toward solving a tricky drug delivery problem. [See Deal]

Consider the difficulties intrinsic to treating solid tumors with anti-angiogenesis agents and chemotherapeutics. Once a tumor’s vascular infrastructure is impaired by anti-angiogenesis, it becomes very difficult to deliver therapeutic doses of chemotherapy to the tumor. What’s more, disrupting a tumor’s blood supply can lead to overexpression of genes that confer increased invasiveness and resistance to cytotoxic drugs. Tempo’s Nanocell drug delivery system skirts these obstacles by allowing for the targeted and sequential release of two drugs in a specific location.

Sasisekharan and colleagues published preclinical proof of concept research in Nature in July 2005. In that study, each Nanocell comprises a biodegradable copolymer (PGLA) nanoparticle nucleus conjugated to doxorubicin, the chemotherapeutic agent. Surrounding this nucleus is a pegylated phospholipid-copolymer envelope, which traps the doxorubicin-conjugated nucleus along with the anti-angiogenesis agent combretastatin-A4, creating a 180-200 nm therapy. Once at the tumor site, the outer envelope degrades, releasing the anti-angiogenesis agent and causing a vascular shutdown. Now isolated within the tumor, the nanoparticle nucleus degrades, releasing the chemotherapeutic agent.

"I’ve looked at an enormous number of nanopharmaceutical plays out there," says Venrock Associates managing general partner Bryan Roberts, PhD. "But they were all a degree too complex for me." But Tempo, he says, avoids reinventing the wheel. "It’s an elegant twist" on a set of well-proven technologies, he says.

Tempo’s backers contend that Nanocell moves drug delivery technology in a new direction, and beyond an array of first-generation technologies that focused on improving drug kinetics and bioavailability into substantive improvements in safety and efficacy of existing and future therapeutics. Crane also predicts that nanotechnologies will play a much broader role in pharmaceutical products moving forward, and that Tempo plans to be a leader in that emerging field.

"We’re focused on taking the very compelling biology demonstrated in the Nature paper and translating that into something that can be practically developed as a pharmaceutical product," says Crane. "We’ve made important modifications to the approach used in the Nature paper that we think will result in a robust development pathway and rapid proof of concept," he says.

Crane notes that Tempo will focus its efforts in three distinct product areas with different sets of risks and rewards. Compounds that are marketed and well established, but have lost patent protection, could provide Tempo with a wholly owned pipeline. Those compounds that have reached the market but have considerable patent life, and a third set that have yet to reach the market, will allow Tempo to leverage its technology to generate revenues from others’ products. That said, Tempo is still in relative stealth-mode. Crane declined to disclose timelines and potential therapeutic areas where Nanocell might be applicable outside of oncology, as well as the product formulation that Tempo will take into the clinic. The company’s Series A should however provide enough funds to take its undisclosed lead product into human trials.

Oncology is an area where it’s practical for a small, young company to retain rights and develop—and potentially commercialize—products on its own. What’s more, "retaining your own products is an important part of realizing value in downstream liquidity events, whether that’s an IPO or an acquisition," says Crane. All in good time.

Christopher Morrison