Drug Farm, a private biotechnology company utilizing genetics and AI technologies to discover and develop innovative, immune-modulating therapies, has raised the first round of C series financing totaling $27 million. With this financing round, Drug Farm will continue its clinical program on DF-006 and advance DF-003 into a first-in-human clinical trial.
The funding for this round was led by YD Capital with other new investors including Jiashan County State-owned Assets Investment and Betta Capital. And existing investors Wedo Venture Management and Detong Capital also participated. Haoyue Capital acted as the exclusive financial advisor.
Drug Farm also announced that it has selected DF-003 as a clinical candidate for cardio-renal disease, and for the rare genetic inflammatory disease ROSAH (retinal dystrophy, optic nerve edema, splenomegaly, anhidrosis, headache). And DF-003 is a first-in-class orally active, potent, and highly selective ALPK1 kinase inhibitor that will enter clinical trials in 2023.
DF-006: DF-006 is known as a first-in-class, orally administered ALPK1 agonist immunomodulator that potently stimulates local, innate immunity in the liver, leading to a robust preclinical efficacy response. The DF-006 preclinical anti-HBV activity has recently been published in Hepatology. And DF-006 has successfully completed single and multiple ascending dose evaluation in Parts 1 and 2 of a Phase 1 clinical trial in healthy volunteers (ACTRN12621000592842). DF-006 will now be evaluated in chronic hepatitis B patients in Part 3 of the multi-center trial.
KEY QUOTES:
“There remains no effective cure for hepatitis B and DF-006 represents a new mechanistic approach to stimulate the body’s own immunity to help clear the infection. We look forward to further testing of DF-006 in treatment naïve and previously-treated chronic hepatitis B patients.”
— Dr. Ed Gane, Professor of Medicine at the University of Auckland, New Zealand and Chief Hepatologist, Transplant Physician, and Deputy Director of the New Zealand Liver Transplant Unit at Auckland City Hospital
“ROSAH is a devastating disease that leads to blindness and is caused by a mutation in ALPK1 resulting in its constitutive hyperactivation. Since DF-003 is a potent inhibitor of ALPK1 kinase, we see great promise for DF-003 to be a personalized medicine that specifically targets the root cause of ROSAH.”
— Dr. Yvan Jamilloux, Professor of Internal Medicine at Lyon University Hospital, France
“Hundreds of millions of people are living with heart failure and chronic kidney disease worldwide. We have identified ALPK1 as a novel target linked to disease biology in cardio-renal disease and developed the first clinical candidate targeting ALPK1.”
— Dr. Henri Lichenstein, CEO and Board Member of Drug Farm
