A red-hot Cincinnati startup is at the center of a new $300 million-plus collaboration between drugmaker Sanofi and global investment group Blackstone Life Sciences that could prove a significant advancement for the local company's business.
Blackstone in March pledged up to $330 million (€300 million) to fund clinical trials and related costs for a subcutaneous formulation (delivered through the skin) of Sanofi drug’s Sarclisa for patients with multiple myeloma, an incurable cancer of the plasma cells.
The local connection? Sanofi has partnered with Evendale-based Enable Injections to advance the development of that delivery, meaning Sarclisa will be delivered using EnFuse, Enable’s body-worn, investigational device.
Enable CEO Mike Hooven told me Sarclisa is considered late to market — the drug is competing largely against Johnson & Johnson’s Darzalex — but the EnFuse gives Sarclisa a competitive edge. Enable is developing and manufacturing the EnFuse as an alternative to IV administration.
The EnFuse, a palm-sized circular disk, can deliver a drug more quickly than traditional IV administration, and a patient can complete the treatment at home, versus at a clinic, and at much lower cost. Per one study, switching from an IV to the EnFuse saved $1,000 per patient per month, Enable said.
“We’re providing pharma companies with a really compelling differentiator,” Hooven said. "It's a revolution in the delivery of drugs. This is something that has the potential to replace most IV therapy — and that, to me, is one of the biggest disruptions that I've ever seen in health care.”
The Sanofi announcement is the second major piece of news from Enable this year. In January, the startup announced a $215 million Series C, the largest raise in the region's history, and one of the top nine tech startup funding deals in the U.S. that month — Blackstone's pledge pushes Enable’s related funding past the $700 million mark.
Most notably, it marks Enable’s first public drug partnership. While Sanofi (Nasdaq: SNY) has been an Enable partner for some time — the French-headquartered drugmaker most notably led Enable’s $40 million Series B in 2018 — it’s the first time a company has mentioned any kind of drug they will partner with the EnFuse.
Bill Baumel, managing director of the Ohio Innovation Fund, one of Enable’s early investors, told me the Blackstone backing will greatly accelerate the study. Blackstone is among the world’s preeminent investors. It also makes the program more robust, he said.
“This supercharges it,” Baumel said. “Pharma, traditionally, it’s a great business with great customers, but it moves more deliberately. Someone like Blackstone, they work on New York time, not pharma time. That’s a big thing.”
Blackstone has the right to garner royalties on future sales. Additional terms of the collaboration were not disclosed.
Sanofi and Blackstone said the pivotal study is expected to begin in the second half of 2022.
“We are excited to advance a subcutaneous dosage form for Sarclisa for patients,” Nicholas Galakatos, global head of Blackstone Life Sciences, said in a release. “Our investment demonstrates Blackstone’s commitment to provide innovative sources of financing to the world’s leading pharmaceutical companies to help advance medicines in critical therapeutic areas.”
