Adecto Pharmaceuticals’ 12-year story has come to an end as the immunotherapy biotech blamed a “risk-averse funding environment” for shutting up shop.
The Boston-based startup was launched in 2014 by researchers from Tufts University to develop therapies and diagnostics aimed at ADAM8-positive cancers. The company’s lead preclinical asset was AD100, a monoclonal antibody that inhibits ADAM8 to reprogram both lymphoid and myeloid cells.
ADAM8, a cell surface protein, has been implicated in immune cell dysfunction in a range of aggressive cancer types, according to Adecto. The idea was that AD100 could generate a more potent antitumor immune response than standard immunotherapies.
But Nora Mineva, Ph.D.—a co-founder and chief scientific officer of the company who took on the CEO role in 2023—revealed in a LinkedIn post Thursday that Adecto has now shut down.
“With a heavy heart, I share that after 12 years, Adecto Pharmaceuticals has officially closed its doors,” Mineva wrote.
“We fought hard to keep going,” the CEO added. “However, navigating a risk-averse fundraising environment that is hesitant to back new therapeutic targets without clinical data meant that we simply ran out of financial runway.”
Mineva said her team “remain deeply convinced that ADAM8-targeted therapies and diagnostics will one day be an essential part of the cancer standard of care.”
“It is our sincere hope that the foundational groundwork we laid over the past decade has brought that day closer for patients,” she added.
Adecto filed a provisional patent for ADAM8 in August and Mineva said her team are “actively exploring pathways to advance its development” to ensure their research “lives on.”
Adecto had yet to report any traditional seed or venture equity rounds, instead relying on “multimillion-dollar” grants from the National Cancer Institute’s small business innovation research scheme.
Industry observers have been sounding the alarm that a slump in funding for biotechs in the earlier stages of drug development could have ripple effects across the sector. When f5 Therapeutics closed in March, the molecular glue company’s CEO pointed to a “brutal” few years for early-stage biotechs, with “funding for young platforms at multi‑year lows and dozens of startups shutting their doors despite strong science.”
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