Entos Pharmaceuticals to Build $137M Facility in Canada
The Canada-based Biotech Has Facility Presence in Torrey Pines and Carlsbad
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Entos Pharmaceuticals, a clinical-stage genetic medicine company with presence in San Diego, is investing $137 million to build a brand-new manufacturing facility in Edmonton, Canada.
John Lewis, founder and chief executive officer at Entos — who previously worked at Scripps Research more than two decades ago — told me over the phone that the new facility will be an approximately 103,000 square feet biomanufacturing plant for research and development purposes.
Both the Government of Canada and Alberta are providing “tens of millions” for this new site, alongside industry collaborations such as Eli Lilly who are committed to helping Entos further build out its capacity for domestic drug manufacturing.
“We're a Canadian company,” said Lewis. “With an investment from the Canadian government, we're looking to expand our footprint there and hire up to 90 staffers. We'll be active in both countries, including the U.S.”
“This expansion represents an investment in infrastructure that will allow domestic manufacturing of genetic medicines, including vaccines,” said Lewis. “For us, this is really important because it allows us to manufacture products in our own pipeline. It also helps build a pipeline for our partners industry partners”
Founding Story
Founded in 2016, Entos was a spin out of the University of Alberta. It was co-founded by John Lewis, Andries Zijlstra, and Roy Duncan.
Entos is focused on medicines that have the potential to block the spread of cancer. In particular, it’s developing genetic medicines using its proprietary drug delivery system called — Fusogenix proteolipid vehicle (PLV). Most notably, the pharmaceutical firm has never raised venture capital financing since its inception.
In 2021, the company inked a collaboration with BioMarin Pharmaceutical. A year after that, it teamed up with Eli Lilly in a $50 million deal that provided the Big Pharma upfront for exclusive rights to use the tech for its nucleic acid-based products. It also received grant funding from the Gates Foundation.
The company developed its own genetic medicine programs, including Covigenix, a COVID-19 booster vaccine. It is also working to develop drugs focused on rare disease, eye and ophthalmic conditions, oncology, and other infectious diseases.
“We have been bootstrapped since the very beginning,” said Lewis. “We built the company methodically, maturing our technology bit by bit. We also had several collaborations and licensing deals with various companies over the years.”
Expanding in Canada and Thoughts on San Diego
The Canada facility will bolster its partnership with Eli Lilly centered on the PLV drug delivery technology and enable commercial manufacturing at a global scale.
“The overall goal of the company is to be the platform for new genetic medicine. Whether it be a vaccine, cancer therapeutic, or disease therapeutic. We’re building a company that is de-risking programs and will allow other companies to come in and leverage our technology.”
We wrapped up the conversation discussing what’s next for Entos and whether an IPO or M&A exit could be in the near future.
“In terms of exit strategy — if the market ever opens up again — we would look at a potential IPO event,” said Lewis. “If we find a buyer that also carries our vision, and then obviously we would consider that too.”
Lewis said the San Diego biotech community is fantastic and that he has enjoyed watching the broader industry grow, more and more over the years.