Agios Pharmaceuticals becomes a clinical-stage company!
In a news release on September 23, 2013, Agios Pharmaceuticals (Cambridge, MA) announced that it had initiated its first clinical study. The company further discussed its early clinical and preclinical programs in its press release on its Third Quarter financial report, dated November 7, 2013.
Specifically, the company initiated a Phase 1 muticenter clinical trial of AG-221 in patients with advanced hematologic malignancies bearing an isocitrate dehydrogenase 2 (IDH2) mutation. The study is designed to evaluate the safety, pharmacokinetics, pharmacodynamics and efficacy of orally-administered AG-221 in this patient population. The first stage of the Phase 1 study is a dose-escalation phase, which is designed to determine the maximum tolerated dose and/or the recommended dose to be used in Phase 2 studies. After the completion of this phase, several cohorts of patients will receive AG-221 to further evaluate the safety, tolerability and clinical activity of the maximum tolerated dose.
We discussed AG-221 in our June 17, 2013 article on this blog. AG-221 is an orally available, selective, potent inhibitor of the mutated IDH2 protein. It is thus a targeted (and personalized) therapy for patients with cancers with an IDH2 mutation.
As we summarized in our June 17, 2013 article, wild-type IDH1 and IDH2 catalyze the NADP+-dependent oxidative decarboxylation of isocitrate to α-ketoglutarate. Mutant forms of IDH1 and IDH2, which are found in certain human cancers, no longer catalyze this reaction, but instead catalyzes the NADPH-dependent reduction of α-ketoglutarate to R(-)-2-hydroxyglutarate (2-HG). Agios researchers hypothesized that 2HG is an oncometabolite. They further hypothesized that developing mutant-specific small molecule inhibitors of IDH1 and IDH2 might inhibit the growth or reverse the oncogenic phenotype of cancer cells that carry the mutant enzymes.
As we further discussed in our article, Agios researchers published two articles in the journal Science in May 2013 that support these hypotheses. The researchers showed that drugs that inhibit the mutant forms of IDH1 and IDH2 can reverse the oncogenic effects of the mutant enzymes in patient-derived tumor samples. These results constitute preclinical support for the hypothesis that the two mutant enzymes are driving disease, and that drugs that target the mutant forms of the enzymes can reverse their oncogenic effects.
In the results reported in one of these research articles, Agios researchers tested a mutant-IDH2 inhibitor in hematologic malignancies (including one model leukemia and one patient-derived leukemia), and showed that treatment with the inhibitor caused differentiation of the leukemic cells to normal blood cells. This preclinical study thus supports the initiation of Agios’ new Phase 1 study of AG-221 in patients with mutant-IDH2 bearing hematologic malignancies.
Additional pipeline news in Agios’ Third Quarter 2013 Report
In addition to the report of the initiation of Phase 1 studies of AG-221, Agios reported that it had advanced AG-120, a mutant-IDH1 inhibitor, toward Investigational New Drug (IND) filing. The company plans to initiate Phase 1 clinical trials of AG-120 in early 2014, in patients with advanced solid and hematological malignancies that carry an IDH1 mutation.
Agios also reported in their Third Quarter 2013 Report that the company had advanced AG-348 into IND-enabling studies. AG-348 is an activator of pyruvate kinase R (PKR). Germline mutation of PKR can result in pyruvate kinase deficiency (PK deficiency), a form of familial hemolytic anemia. Agios’ in vitro studies indicate that PKR activators can enhance the activity of most common PKR mutations, and suggest that these compounds may be potential treatments for PK deficiency.
Agios’ AG-348 program is part of its R&D aimed at development of treatments for inborn errors of metabolism (IEM). We discussed this program in our November 30, 2011 article on this blog.
Agios to present preclinical research at the ASH meeting in December 2013
In a second November 7, 2013 press release, Agios announced that it would present the results of the preclinical studies of its lead programs in cancer metabolism and in IEM at the 2013 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting, December 7-10, 2013 in New Orleans, LA.
Agios researchers will give one presentation on a study of AG-221 treatment in a primary human IDH2 mutant bearing acute myeloid leukemia (AML) xenograft model. They will also present two posters–one on a mutant-IDH1 inhibitor in combination with Ara-C (arabinofuranosyl cytidine) in a primary human IDH1 mutant bearing AML xenograft model, and another on the effects of a small molecule activation of pyruvate kinase on metabolic activity in red cells from patients with pyruvate kinase deficiency-associated hemolytic anemia.
Can Agios Pharmaceuticals become a new Genentech?
On October 13, 2013, XConomy published an article on Agios’ CEO, David Schenkein. The article is entitled “David Schenkein, Cancer Doc Turned CEO, Aims to Build New Genentech”.
As many industry experts point out, the business environment is much different from that in which Genentech (and Amgen, Genzyme and Biogen) were founded, and grew to become major companies. As one illustration of the difference between the two eras, neither Genentech nor Genzyme are independent companies today. Biogen exists as a merged company, Biogen Idec, which between 2007 and 2011 had to fend off attacks by shareholder activist Carl Icahn.
Moreover, this has been the era of the “virtual biotech company”. These are lean companies with only a very few employees that outsource most of their functions, and that are designed to be acquired by a Big Pharma or large biotech company. The virtual company strategy has been designed to deal with the inability of most young biotech companies to go public in the current financial environment. (However, there has been a surge in biotech IPOs in the past year, including Agios’ own IPO on June 11, 2013. So it is possible that the environment for young biotech companies going public is changing.)
Nevertheless, the XConomy article states that when Dr. Schenkein was in discussions with venture capitalist Third Rock on becoming the CEO of one of their portfolio companies, he stated that he wanted “a company with a vision, and investor support, to be a long-term, independent company”. As we have discussed in this blog, and also in an interview for Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN), Agios’ strategy is to build a company that can endure as an independent firm over a long period of time, and that can also demonstrate sustained performance. This strategy has been characterized (especially in the 1990s and early 2000s) as “Built to Last”, a term that I used in the interview.
Later, Agios posted a reprint of the C&EN article on its website, which it retitled “Built to Last”. This illustrates Agios’ commitment to “Built to Last”, as is more importantly shown by the company’s financial and R&D strategy.
Even if Agios cannot become the next Genentech, it–as well as a few other young platform companies mentioned in the CE&N article–might become an important biotech or pharmaceutical company like Vertex. However, all depends on the success of Agios’ products in the clinic and at regulatory agencies like the FDA, as well as the future shape of the corporate, financial and health care environment.
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