Venture firms are betting that the founding chief executive of Pharmacyclics Inc., acquired by AbbVie Inc. for $21 billion, will develop another blockbuster cancer therapy through newly formed Corvus Pharmaceuticals Inc.

Richard A. Miller launched Corvus last year and raised a $33.5 million Series A round in December led by OrbiMed Advisors. With Pharmacyclics, formed in 1991, he initiated a program to develop Imbruvica, a blood cancer therapy that won initial U.S. approval in 2013. Imbruvica's ability to treat diseases such as chronic lymphocytic leukemia led AbbVie to buy Pharmacyclics in May.

Dr. Miller, who was Pharmacyclics CEO until September 2008, teamed up with former Pharmacyclics executive Joseph J. Buggy and OrbiMed Private Equity Partner Peter Thompson to form Corvus. The company, also funded by Adams Street Partners and Novo Ventures, develops immuno-oncology drugs that help the immune system combat cancer.

Immuno-oncology has emerged recently as scientists have uncovered new ways to tap into the immune system’s power. Immuno-oncology therapies are leading to advances in the treatment of diseases such as melanoma, lung cancer and various blood cancers. This is leading venture investors to fund several different approaches to immuno-oncology.

Companies like Juno Therapeutics Inc., which went public in December, engineer T cells of the immune system to battle cancer. Others, including CytomX Therapeutics Inc., are developing “checkpoint inhibitors,” or drugs that release a brake that keeps the immune system from attacking cancer. CytomX is developing a drug targeting the checkpoint molecule PD-L1.

Marketed drugs Opdivo and Keytruda, from Bristol-MyersSquibb Co. and Merck & Co., respectively, inhibit a similar checkpoint target, PD-1. Another approved product, Bristol-Myers's Yervoy, blocks the checkpoint protein CTLA-4.

Corvus’s most advanced medicine is also a checkpoint inhibitor. Unlike the antibody drugs Opdivo, Keytruda and Yervoy, which are taken intravenously, Corvus’s product is a small-molecule drug taken orally. It also targets a different checkpoint protein, Dr. Miller said, although he didn't disclose which one. Having an oral product targeting a different checkpoint protein gives Corvus a competitive advantage, according to Dr. Miller.

The drug may be effective on its own and in combination with anti-PD-1 or PD-L1 drugs, according to Dr. Miller. Corvus intends to initiate Phase Ib clinical trials in solid-tumor patients in early 2016.

Corvus’s other programs include a preclinical drug that reprograms T cells to make them more toxic to tumor cells. The company, based in Burlingame, Calif., also has an early-stage antibody checkpoint inhibitor and an early-stage small-molecule checkpoint inhibitor, Dr. Miller said.

OrbiMed’s Dr. Thompson has joined the Corvus board along with Novo Ventures Partner Peter Moldt and Adams Street Partner Terry Gould.

Brian Gormley
VentureWire
July 1, 2015

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