Adecto Pharmaceuticals has ceased operations, while Aviceda Therapeutics is in the process of winding down.
Adecto Pharmaceuticals and Aviceda Therapeutics are exiting the biotech scene, although Adecto’s CEO hopes the company’s work can continue.
Adecto CEO Nora Minerva announced on LinkedIn last week that the business, which had been developing a treatment for cancers that aren’t responsive to conventional immunotherapy, had officially closed its doors. The Boston-based biotech’s website indicates operations ceased Sept. 30.
Aviceda, which had planned to take an eye drug into a Phase 3 clinical trial, is also winding down, according to a source familiar with the decision, Endpoints News reported Oct. 2, citing an employee’s LinkedIn post that said the business is closing “due to clinical trial results.” The biotech was developing therapies to treat retinal diseases. An Aviceda asset missed its primary endpoint in a Phase 2b clinical trial, the biotech announced in December.
BioSpace has contacted Adecto and Aviceda for comment and to confirm the number of employees the closures will affect. According to their LinkedIn profiles, Adecto had between two and 10 employees, while Aviceda has 51 to 200.
In her LinkedIn post about Adecto’s closure, Minerva wrote, “We fought hard to keep going. However, navigating a risk-averse fundraising environment that is hesitant to back new therapeutic targets without clinical data meant that we simply ran out of financial runway.”
The company’s financing milestones included receiving multiple grants. Most recently, in 2022, Adecto announced it had been awarded its second Phase 2 $2 million Small Business Innovation Research grant from the National Cancer Institute.
Founded in 2014 by Tufts University researchers, Adecto was developing a monoclonal antibody that inhibits the cell surface protein ADAM8 to reprogram lymphoid and myeloid cells to generate a more potent antitumor immune response. Minerva said in her LinkedIn post that the company remains “deeply convinced” that ADAM8-targeted therapies and diagnostics will become an essential part of the cancer standard of care. To ensure the work lives on, she said, the company has filed a provisional patent on its lead ADAM8 antibody and is exploring ways to advance its development.
Meanwhile, Cambridge, Massachusetts–based Aviceda has not made an official announcement about its closure. In its most recent press release from December, the biotech announced Phase 2b results for AVD-104, a polysialic acid–coated nanoparticle, in patients with geographic atrophy secondary to age-related macular degeneration (AMD). The primary endpoint analysis showed no statistical difference in the rate of change in geographic atrophy between AVD-104 versus monthly treatment with Astellas Pharma’s Izervay. The study did show that treatment with AVD-104 resulted in clinically meaningful reductions in geographic atrophy lesion-growth rates versus natural history and sustained visual acuity gains with a favorable safety profile.
The company, founded in 2018, was planning to advance AVD-104 into two randomized, sham-controlled Phase 3 confirmatory studies, with trial initiation expected this year.
