Advancing pipeline of therapeutic candidates focused on key interrelated targets in oncology, immunology and metabolic diseases
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. – May 17, 2016 – Nimbus Therapeutics, a biotechnology company focused on harnessing the power of computational chemistry to design breakthrough drugs for serious, underserved human diseases, today announced the recent closing of Gilead Sciences, Inc.’s acquisition of Nimbus Apollo, Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Nimbus Therapeutics, and its Acetyl-CoA Carboxylase (ACC) inhibitor program. The acquisition’s completion triggered a $400 million upfront payment to Nimbus from Gilead. Per the agreement between the two companies, Nimbus has the potential to receive an additional $800 million in development-related milestones from Gilead over time.
The Nimbus Apollo program includes the lead candidate NDI-010976, a hepatotropic allosteric ACC inhibitor, and other preclinical ACC inhibitors for the treatment of non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), and for the potential treatment of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and other diseases. With the completion of the acquisition, Nimbus Apollo is now a wholly-owned subsidiary of Gilead, and Gilead has assumed sole responsibility for future development and commercialization of NDI-010976 and other ACC inhibitors.
Nimbus continues to progress a diverse pipeline of therapeutic candidates focused on serious unmet needs in oncology, immunology and metabolic diseases. Placing a particular emphasis on the mechanistic relationship between and among these primary therapeutic focus areas, Nimbus is leveraging its unique computational chemistry approach to advance novel molecules in cancer metabolism, immuno-oncology and immuno-metabolism. The company’s pipeline addresses key biological targets including Tyk2, KRas, and the recently unveiled addition of non-nucleotide agonist and antagonist programs for STING (STimulator of INterferon Genes) as well as other undisclosed targets.
“We’re pleased to announce the completion of Gilead’s acquisition of Nimbus Apollo, and we look forward to following the clinical progress of NDI-010976,” said Don Nicholson, Ph.D., Chief Executive Officer at Nimbus. “Our long-term vision at Nimbus is to build a robust biotechnology company that is supportive of our mission to turn difficult targets into medicines that matter. With our breakthrough science, unmatched team and novel corporate structure, we are confident that we can make significant contributions to human health.”
Nimbus is structured as a series of independent C corporations, each of which houses distinct research and development programs focused on a highly desirable, yet previously intractable disease target. This model enables Nimbus to make investment and partnership decisions on an asset versus pipeline basis, ensuring the full value of each program is realized. It also affords Nimbus broad flexibility when determining optimal clinical development plans, with the opportunity to advance programs internally or consider a variety of partnering and collaboration scenarios.
About Nimbus Therapeutics
Nimbus Therapeutics is a biotechnology company headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts (USA). With its breakthrough computational chemistry platform, enabled through its privileged partnership with co-founder, Schrödinger, Inc., Nimbus is pioneering the application of computational chemistry to design treatments for substantial and underserved human diseases. The company’s focus on metabolic diseases, cancer and immune-inflammatory disorders reflects the mechanistic relationship between these disorders, and Nimbus’ ability to rapidly tackle well validated targets as well as those that have proven intractable to the approaches taken by others in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry. Nimbus’ approach results in therapeutic candidates with high potency, selectivity and other desirable drug-like properties. To learn more, please visit www.nimbustx.com.