We are moving right along with the new branch of the Sponsor Atlas series, which focuses on young pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies that are in early stages or stealth mode. In the next edition of Sponsor Atlas: Discovering Biotech Startups, we’re looking at Amagma Therapeutics, exploring the current affairs and future orientation of this emerging Boston - based stealth biotech startup. To accomplish this, we will give a business overview of their current operations, summarize their outsourcing needs, map out their development goals and decision-makers, and highlight their current strategies for capturing innovation. If you haven’t already read our other blogs on new biotech startups, be sure to check them out here.
Amagma Therapeutics is an exciting startup biotech company centrally located in Waltham, Massachusetts. Their researchers are dedicated to developing antibody therapeutics against inflammatory diseases which have proven to be intractable by other approaches. A number of these serious illnesses are driven by overactive extracellular proteases which can compromise organ function and fuel inflammation. Small molecule approaches targeting this class of proteins have proven to be challenging due to off target effects. Using their precision-targeted antibody approach, they are developing therapies that combine efficacy and safety. [1]
Amagma does not have any registered trademarks, but they do have an operating website with some contact information on their management team as well as a few nice graphics. We believe there’s a good chance that a more developed website will be coming soon. Amagma’s principal place of business is located at 100 Beaver Street, Suite 307, Waltham, MA 02453. As noted on the business entity search, Amagma was registered in Delaware as a C-Corp with a filing date on 8/29/2019 and has a registered agent address. Amagma has an estimated revenue of <$1M and an estimate of <10 employees, but we think these numbers are going to increase very soon.
Even though there isn’t much information on their business activities, Amagma is funded by Polaris Partners and founded by two proven serial entrepreneurs, so we believe they are in a good position to outsource some of their downstream research and development work in the near future.
Amagma doesn’t have a lot of information about their current outsourcing needs, but considering their recent venture funding, we think they are in a great position to finance a ton of outsourcing work. Amagma, Inc. has not filed any forms with the SEC apart from the initial company registration, but they do have some private investment backing from Polaris Partners, with whom includes Amy Schulman, J.D as a board member from Polaris on the Amagma team. The company is still early in development but they most likely have a few antibody candidates in efficacy studies as well as having multiple discovery stage projects in the pipeline. We think this would be a great time to contact Amagma Therapeutics if you’re interested in providing outsourcing services related to antibody-based protein development and any research technologies surrounding it.
We think outsourcing partners in the realms of large molecule CMOs, preclinical CROs and bioanalytical CROs that have experience with protein expression, purification, and cell based assays should definitely have Amagma Therapeutics on their radar over the next few years.
While Amagma’s overall business goals and funding activities found online are few and far between, we believe their main focus is to further the development of antibody therapeutics against inflammatory disease, specifically with GI disorders, which have historically been proven incurable by other approaches. Amagma’s precision medicine approach to treating inflammatory illnesses with antibody therapeutics will hopefully prove to be more effective and safer than our current science. The research team at Amagma is currently in discovery mode, and most likely developing in vitro and cell based assays, performing mechanism of action studies, and evaluating novel antibodies that modulate disease causing enzymes. Some of their other work would be performing assays in support of pharmacokinetic, pharmacodynamic, and anti-drug antibody studies, as well as optimizing any developability assays they have to screen for candidates with optimal biochemical and biophysical properties.
Some of the past research from the executive team include yeast-based antibody discovery systems and inflammation drug discovery efforts, research on muscle wasting and even stability studies on high concentration antibody formulations, all of which can give us clues as to what their potential research and development activities could entail. With the development of their new anti-inflammatory focused therapeutics platform, Amagma will have the potential to target and even cure several inflammatory and immune diseases, including rheumatoid arthritis, Crohn's disease, ulcerative colitis, spondyloarthropathies, juvenile arthritis, psoriasis, psoriatic arthritis, and many others.
Even though there isn't much information about Amagma’s research and development pipeline, some of the ways business teams could initially connect would be from providing services in the following areas: in vitro functional assay and cell based functional and phenotypic assays in support of discovery programs; performing sample analysis from in vivo animal studies or human translational studies; design, management and execution of antibody discovery and optimization campaigns; antibody clone screening and selection efforts; PCR-based cloning, construct design, site-directed mutagenesis, vector engineering, and reformatting of antibodies (Fabs, ScFv, Bispecifics); and generating antibodies from display and hybridoma technologies.
With a substantial amount of investment backing from Polaris Partners, significant progress in scientific benchwork, and a rockstar of an executive team, we believe that Amagma Therapeutics will do very well in their early-stage developments and initial clinical trial studies. Amagma’s innovative approach to targeting inflammatory conditions with antibody-based therapeutics will surely create some promising new treatments in the future. With a few potential candidates currently being researched and developed in their facility, Amagma is going to make some unprecedented discoveries in the area of antibody-based therapeutics for inflammation.
Dr. Tillman Gerngross is a veteran within the antibody therapeutics discovery community, having already created and led multiple companies into the forefront of antibody research, such as Adimab, his antibody drug discovery shop that’s valued at north of half a billion dollars. Adimab has been pumping out novel antibody candidates to clients for years. For Gerngross, who has built and sold companies while constructing a reputation as one of the leading scientists in antibody development, Amagma Therapeutics is just another one of his pathways to help focus on developing therapeutic antibodies specifically for inflammatory and age related diseases.
“The more senior you become and the more you’ve seen, you become more a catalyst of certain events,” Gerngross said in an interview. “By catalyzing or slowing down certain things you start shaping certain organizations or processes that you care about.” [5]
Now that Gerngross has a stable platform that enables its partners to rapidly expand their biologics pipelines through a broad spectrum of novel technologies and research assets, his team at Amagma will be able to focus their development on a few beneficial and very exciting therapeutics in the near future. While it’s still fairly difficult to determine what Amagma will have to offer during stealth mode, their amount of investment backing is solid, and with the amazing backgrounds of the executive team, we think they are on track to create some major breakthroughs in the industry over the next few years. Be sure to keep Amagma on your contact list and look out for our next edition in this series coming soon.
If you would like a simple solution for keeping an eye on drug sponsor companies, like Amagma Therapeutics, without relying on a database and generic lists of leads each week, we at Zymewire are here to help. Reach out today, and stay tuned for the next installment of the Sponsor Atlas: Discovering new Biotechs. If you enjoy these articles, please feel free to give them a share through the social links below!