Microbiome company Enterome plans $108m raise to fund Phase II cancer trials

Enterome is planning to raise EUR100m ($108m) as part of its latest fundraising round to power its clinical studies, said CEO Pierre Belichard in an interview with Pharmaceutical Technology. The company has already started speaking to investors in Europe and plans to start contacting those in the US in early September, he said.

The funding will go towards the company’s clinical trials, which include two new Phase II studies, said Belichard. Enterome’s E02463 is an off-the-shelf immunotherapy that is made of four bacterial peptides of B lymphocyte-specific lineage markers. These peptides are based on the company’s OncoMimics approach, which uses specific peptide combinations derived from bacteria in the gut microbiome.

The company had previously raised EUR 46.3m as part of its Series E round, based on a June 2020 release, while Belichard added that Enterome has raised EUR 116m to date. While Enterome is not actively looking to go public at the moment, it is constantly evaluating different funding opportunities, which also includes going public, said Belichard. The US market and NASDAQ remain the most attractive, he added.

On 14 June, the company announced early clinical data from the first cohort of the Phase I/II SIDNEY trial (NCT04669171), which studied E02463. Enterome has now started to recruit patients in the first expansion cohort, which tests EO2463 as a monotherapy in previously untreated indolent non-Hodgkin lymphoma patients. The company is also enrolling patients for the second and third expansion cohorts, which will test EO2463 in combination with Biogen/Roche’s Rituxan (rituximab), and EO2463 in tandem with Bristol Myers Squibb’s Revlimid (lenalidomide) before Rituxan, respectively, explained Belichard.

The Paris, France-headquartered Enterome also plans to start a Phase II randomised study of EO2463 in indolent non-Hodgkin lymphoma by mid-2024, noted Belichard, adding that the company plans to close the fundraising round in 2024.

Additionally, Enterome aims to start a Phase IIb study of EO2401, another investigational drug in its pipeline, in recurrent glioblastoma, said Belichard. EO2401 consists of three OncoMimics peptides that are strongly homologous to three human tumour antigens expressed in adrenal tumours and glioblastoma. Both the EO2463 and EO2401 trials are dependent on the funding that will be secured in the new raise, he explained.

The company is currently working on expanding the Phase II CLAUDE trial (NCT05350501) of its third drug EO2040 in ctDNA-defined minimal residual disease of colorectal cancer to Spain, said Belichard. While the trial could include sites in France, the more widespread availability of ctDNA assays in the American and Spanish sites make them more favourable for the time being, noted Belichard.