Don't be confused. Nitrome Biosciences isn't a U.K. gaming company. The biotech rebranded, lured Bristol Myers Squibb as an investor in its $45 million series A and snagged a Nurix executive to lead the way to avoid any confusion.
When Pierre Beaurang, Ph.D., was recruited to be the new CEO of Nitrome, he Googled the company and was immediately directed to a video game developer across the pond. So, two months into his tenure, the biotech is getting a fresh start as Nitrase Therapeutics and some money from BMS to be eponymous with its new class of enzymes.
The Big Pharma's participation brings the $38 million series A, originally funded in April 2020, to $45 million total, Nitrase said Tuesday. Nitrase already had the backing of AbbVie, through its venture outlet, and Sofinnova. Nitrase also was a "golden ticket" recipient from BMS' Celgene in 2018 and 2019 and won a similar award from Amgen in 2019, giving the small biotech access to lab space and other resources.
Now, Beaurang will look to solidify Nitrase's work on nitrases, a family of enzymes that the biotech thinks can slow, or maybe stop, progression of Parkinson's disease and a host of other conditions. He takes the post held by founder Irene Griswold-Prenner, Ph.D., who will focus on her role as chief scientific officer going forward.
RELATED: AbbVie, Sofinnova back $38M round for Parkinson's-focused Nitrome
The San Francisco biotech's "universe of nitrases" that it knows and understands has nearly tripled from the 12 it had when Beaurang joined earlier this autumn, the CEO said.
(Nitrase)
"It’s not very often that people discover a whole new class of enzymes, particularly protein-modifying enzymes," Beaurang said. The CEO was previously chief business officer of Nurix Therapeutics, which he joined in 2014 after spending about 13 years at Five Prime Therapeutics, which he helped found.
Beaurang's eyes are now set on repeating the high-caliber collaborations he formed while at Nurix, including a $55 million upfront, $2.5 billion biobucks deal with Sanofi in January 2020 and another $22 million this year for up to five projects. During the executive's tenure, the small molecule biotech also signed a $2.75 billion pact with Gilead in 2019 and an oncology tie-up with Celgene, now part of BMS, in 2015.
RELATED: The top 15 biopharma licensing deals of 2020 | Sanofi/Nurix
"I'm imagining something like that," Beaurang said of forming one to two similar partnerships at Nitrase.
Parkinson's is the first disease Nitrase is going after because of the enzyme's connection to alpha-synuclein, "a very well-validated target for Parkinson's," Beaurang said. The second program will likely be in oncology, and others down the line could be in fibrotic diseases and immune-based conditions, the CEO added.