Finch Research & Development LLC

Microbiome drug developer Finch Therapeutics will lay off 95% of its workforce and end an important clinical trial of a medicine its developing for a type of bacterial infection.The jobs cuts, announced by Finch Tuesday, will affect 77 employees. It is the third round of layoffs for the struggling biotechnology company since April 2022, following prior reductions of 20% and 37%.In its statement, Finch attributed the restructuring in part to its chances of obtaining additional funding or partnerships to advance the medicine, known as CP-101 and for recurrent C. difficile infections. The company also cited slower-than-expected enrollment in a Phase 3 study of CP-101, unauthorized use of the companys patents and broader sector trends.These were very difficult decisions that we determined were necessary after carefully considering a number of factors and challenges facing Finch, said Finch CEO Mark Smith in the Jan. 24 statement.Moving forward, Finch plans to focus on realizing the value of its intellectual patent estate around CP-101 and microbiome-based therapies, suggesting the company will explore selling assets or other alternatives.Formed in 2014, Finch Therapeutics later merged with a company called Crestovo, gaining CP-101 and related patents. In 2021, the combined company went public via an initial public offering of shares at $17 apiece, raising $128 million in gross proceeds.Shares now trade at $0.55 following a yearslong slide in value thats corresponded to setbacks for the company and in the broader field of microbiome drug development. More recently, Finch lost its partner Takeda Pharmaceutical, which in August handed back rights to two preclinical medicines for Crohns disease and ulcerative colitis.Takedas decision prompted Finchs second restructuring in September. But the biotech was still moving forward with CP-101, resuming patient dosing in the Phase 3 study after a clinical hold by the Food and Drug Administration had led it to pause enrollment.Set to involve more than 300 participants, the study was designed to compare CP-101 against a placebo in preventing recurrent C. difficile infections. Finch expected to deliver data by the first half of 2024, potentially helping to support an FDA approval application.But since Finchs September restructuring, rival Ferring Pharmaceuticals won FDA clearance for a microbiota-based therapy for recurrent C. difficile infections. Seres Therapeutics, another competitor, has an oral pill composed of purified bacterial spores that in October was accepted for regulatory review, with a decision expected by the end of April. '

It has been noted that a number of billionaires—at least six—who are fifty years or older in age, have been investing in health care and longevity-related startup companies. It’s not exactly new that a whole raft of billionaires have thrown money into biotech companies. For example, The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and Google co-founder Larry Page recently pledged $12 million to research for a universal flu vaccine. Priscilla Chan, a physician, and her husband, Facebook chief executive officer Mark Zuckerberg, created in 2016 the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, pledging $3 billion towards basic since research over the following 10 years. It has the goal of curing all diseases, or preventing them or managing them, by the end of the century. It has been noted that a number of billionaires—at least six—who are fifty years or older in age, have been investing in health care and longevity-related startup companies. Bill Gates, 62, is one of them, and his foundation spends millions investing in healthcare-related projects, but most of them are related to solving health problems worldwide, especially ones that afflict developing countries. Longevity, per se, isn’t the focus. Recently, Michael Bloomberg, 76, invested in Finch Therapeutics Group via his family office, Willett Advisors. Finch is working to develop microbial therapies—which is to say, developing strains of microorganisms that can be used as therapeutics to change a person’s microbiota. The company merged with Crestovo in 2017, which has CP101, currently being evaluated in patients with recurrent C. difficile infections. Richard Branson, 67, founder of Virgin Group and chairman of Virgin Hyperloop One, invested in Doctor On Demand, a tech platform that offers telemedicine visits between doctors and patients. Branson was one of the participants in a $21 million fundraising round led by Venrock, with participating from Shasta Ventures. In a provocatively titled Observer article, “6 Billionaires Whose Fear of Death Is Fueling a Boom In Biotech Startups,” Sissi Cao also mentions Tim Disney , 57, the great-nephew of Walt Disney, and Andrew Russell, 56, the Duke of Bedford, invested $8 million in Skyhawk Therapeutics, which is focused on developing treatments for cancer and neurological disease; Jeff Bezos, 54, Amazon founder, invested over $100 million in UNITY Biotechnology , which is focused on aging, and Peter Thiel, 50, co-led a $10 million investment round in ChemomAb, an Israel-based company working on treatments for immune system disorders. Cao quotes a Family Capital article, saying, “That realization that things are beginning to increasingly move in the direction of old age often leads individuals to try to at least slow down the aging process. If you’re very rich, apart from staying fit and eating a healthy diet, a way of trying to prolong one’s age is to invest in new medications that might just increase one’s life—and also make a lot of money in the process.” That’s probably true, as far as it goes. None of these people are noted for being stupid or throwing money at lousy investments, however. And yet, when you’re talking about someone like Richard Branson, who has a net worth of approximately $5 billion, or Jeff Bezos, with a net worth of about $130.7 billion, investing a few million dollars in a biotech startup doesn’t seem like they’re desperately investing in something that will let them live forever (or die trying). It sounds far more like they think it might be a good investment and potentially a worthwhile thing to invest in. And what to make of Mark Zuckerberg, who is 33 years old, and his wife, Priscilla Chan, who is also 33? Do these relative youngsters feel death looming at their door? It’s more likely that Chan, in particular, as a physician, understands that there is a great deal of movement that can be made in biopharma and healthcare if resources are provided. And it just might turn out to be a good investment as well—even though biotech investment is wildly volatile. After all, if any of them had invested $1,000 in Gilead Sciences ’ initial public offering (IPO) in January 1992, that investment was worth $100,000 in 2015, or a return on investment of 18,927 percent. It’s probably true that as one passes one’s fifties, health and longevity becomes of more interest. But it certainly doesn’t appear to be exclusive to this age group. Take, for example, Bill Maris, 42. The founder and former chief executive officer of GV (Google Ventures), one of the other companies he founded was a Google/Alphabet company, Calico, whose very focus is combating aging and related diseases. Maybe the younger entrepreneurs want to live forever, too.

Small Cambridge Biotech Warp Bio Scores $387M R&D Two privately-held biotechs have merged to tackle recurrent C. difficile infections. Two privately-held biotechs have merged to tackle recurrent C. difficile infections. Finch Therapeutics and Cambridge, Mass.-based Crestovo completed a merger into the integrated microbiome company Finch Therapeutics Group . The merger combines Crestovo’s late-stage C. diff treatment, CP-101 an oral Full-Spectrum Microbiota product, with Finch’s manufacturing capabilities as well as that company’s machine-learning platform that allows it to reverse engineer clinical and molecular data. Finch also operates one of the largest stool donation programs in the world and manufactures approximately 1,000 microbial treatments every month, according to company data. The new company will be headquartered in Somerville and be helmed by Finch Chief Executive Officer Mark Smith . Joseph Lobacki , who had been serving as interim-CEO for Crestovo, will assume the role of chief operating officer. Earlier this year, Finch and Japanese pharma giant Takeda signed a deal to jointly develop FIN-524, a live biotherapeutic product to treat ulcerative colitis. Through its collaboration with OpenBiome, products manufactured by Finch are distributed to a network of more than 900 providers. Finch’s leading donor program and manufacturing capabilities will enable rapid scale-up upon commercialization of its Full-Spectrum Microbiota products, the company said. Smith touted the combined platforms and the promise of CP101. He said the merger will allow an acceleration of the ongoing placebo-controlled CP101 trial, dubbed PRISM 3. Dosing of the 240 patient trial has commenced. The company hopes CP101 will continue to show the successes it has in earlier trials. In an open label study of 49 patients, 88 percent achieved clinical success, which defined as no recurrence of CDI over two months. “This combination of a potential first-in-class product candidate for recurrent C. difficile infections with a novel technology platform for developing Rationally-Selected Microbiota™ products uniquely positions Finch Therapeutics Group to deliver on both the near- and long-term promise of microbiome therapies to transform public health and quickly reach the patient populations we yearn to serve,” Smith said in a statement. The combined company will have a broad and comprehensive intellectual property portfolio with 26 issued U.S. and foreign patents and more than 50 filed patent applications. “Finch Therapeutics Group is differentiated by our unique commercial-scale manufacturing operations, which through a collaboration with OpenBiome, already delivers microbiome treatments to thousands of patients each year. We are also leveraging our human-first discovery and machine-learning platform to develop Rationally-Selected Microbiota therapies for inflammatory bowel disease through our partnership with Takeda. At the same time, we continue to expand our pipeline of wholly-owned candidates for diseases impacted by the microbiome.” Lobacki added.