CalciMedica Finds a New Pathway to Fight Autoimmune Disorders

calcium release-activated calcium, or CRAC, channels. Velicelebi says the CRAC channel is essential for activating T cells, a core element of the body’s immune response, and that makes the CRAC channel an ideal target for a new class of immunosuppressive drugs.

But the research fell outside TorreyPines’ focus on diseases and disorders of the central nervous system. So TorreyPines transferred its STIM1-related assets to CalciMedica in 2007, in exchange for common stock in Velicelebi’s startup, along with other potential fees and royalty payments. CalciMedica also acquired exclusive rights to Orai1, the CRAC channel discovered by researchers at Harvard Medical School’s CBR Institute for Biomedical Research. Studies have shown that Orai1 and STIM1 function together in activating the immune response.

Since then, CalciMedica’s progress in optimizing candidate compounds for a variety of autoimmune disorders enabled Velicelebi’s startup to raise a total of $7 million in 2007 from SR One, the corporate venture arm of GlaxoSmithKline, and Sanderling Ventures.  CalciMedica got a commitment for $12 million in another round of venture funding led by Biogen Idec New Ventures in November, 2008, with participation from SR One and Sanderling Ventures, $4 million of which was invested immediately. The remaining $8 million will come in two installments from all three investors as CalciMedica meets future milestones

“This is a very exciting area,” says Velicelebi, who points to a drug development partnership that rival Synta Pharmaceuticals of Lexington, MA, announced last month with Roche, the Swiss Pharmaceutical giant. Like CalciMedica, Synta is focused on developing a new class of small molecule drugs that also target CRAC channels as a way to modulate immune cell function. Satwant Narula, Roche’s Head of Discovery for Inflammation, said in a statement released at the time: “The CRACM (modulating) channel inhibitor approach has tremendous potential to treat rheumatoid arthritis and a wide range of other inflammatory diseases that have a high unmet need for oral, targeted, disease-modifying agents.” Roche agreed to pay Synta $25 million in upfront license fees under the deal, along with additional payments that could total close to $1 billion.

“It’s the potential of this strategy that has gotten the corporate interest,” Velicelebi says. “For a small, young company, I think we’re going to be OK.”

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Author: Bruce V. Bigelow

In Memoriam: Our dear friend Bruce V. Bigelow passed away on June 29, 2018. He was the editor of Xconomy San Diego from 2008 to 2018. Read more about his life and work here. Bruce Bigelow joined Xconomy from the business desk of the San Diego Union-Tribune. He was a member of the team of reporters who were awarded the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in National Reporting for uncovering bribes paid to San Diego Republican Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham in exchange for special legislation earmarks. He also shared a 2006 award for enterprise reporting from the Society of Business Editors and Writers for “In Harm’s Way,” an article about the extraordinary casualty rate among employees working in Iraq for San Diego’s Titan Corp. He has written extensively about the 2002 corporate accounting scandal at software goliath Peregrine Systems. He also was a Gerald Loeb Award finalist and National Headline Award winner for “The Toymaker,” a 14-part chronicle of a San Diego start-up company. He takes special satisfaction, though, that the series was included in the library for nonfiction narrative journalism at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University. Bigelow graduated from U.C. Berkeley in 1977 with a degree in English Literature and from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1979. Before joining the Union-Tribune in 1990, he worked for the Associated Press in Los Angeles and The Kansas City Times.