Ymmunobio: The Venture Leader Biotech developing on first-in-class cancer therapies

13.05.2024 11:00, Rita Longobardi

Meet Peter Schiemann, CEO of Ymmunobio. The Biotech startup is committed to developing preclinical breakthroughs toward improving how cancer therapies are developed. Peter is on a business development and investor roadshow with nine other Biotech innovators in Boston.

Name: Peter Schiemann
Location: Riehen, BS
Nationality: German
Education: Pharmacy & Human Biology, PhD
Job title: CEO
Number of employees: 5
Money raised: CHF 1.322M
First touchpoint with Venturelab: Innosuisse Start-up Training
 
Can you tell us who your product or solution helps and how? Ymmunobio is developing treatments for solid tumors, addressing a significant unmet need in conditions like liver and gastric cancer, where current treatment options are limited. Our novel antibody targets a receptor found in approximately 50% of solid tumors, offering hope to many patients. It exclusively binds to tumor cells, sparing healthy tissue—a promising approach in cancer therapy:

1. ADC: Our antibody binds to tumor cells and gets internalized.
2. Radio-labeled antibody: For cancers with low internalization, our radiolabeled antibody, attached to a radioactive isotope, destroys tumor cells without needing internalization. We're also creating a companion diagnostic to select eligible patients based on receptor expression levels.

What market are you addressing, and what is the potential of your startup in that market? Our focus is on gastric cancer, which affects 1.1M and causes 0.77M deaths. Around 80% of these patients' tumors express our new receptor target. The projected market size by 2031 is USD 10.7B. Additionally, our antibody targets multiple cancers, including stomach, liver, colon, and more, where the new target is prevalent (averaging 50%). We foresee our product revolutionizing solid tumor oncology treatment.

How did you come up with the idea for your startup? The compound was found through scouting by Dr. Peter Schiemann some years ago. This fueled the founding of Ymmunobio and we purchased the compound from the originator. Ymmunobio owns the IP
and we have just submitted a new IP application for further claims, globally.

How do you think the Venture Leaders roadshow will help you achieve your vision? Meeting investors in the US is one of our key goals. We are very excited to be chosen as part of the team that will go to Boston on this mission, as the US still has the most capital in the market to invest in startups with promising compounds. The difficulty we were struggling with in the past, even though we have a lot of connections to the pharmaceutical industry, was to get the right connection to key investors.


What are your team’s key achievements to date? The Ymmunobio team secured funding to optimize our invention into a humanized antibody. We've identified the receptor target in multiple tissues via immunohistochemistry and FACS analysis on solid tumor cell lines. Our antibody demonstrated internalization in selected tumor cells, a crucial step for ADC development. We're currently evaluating cross-reactivity with only two identified targets. We've partnered with a company developing a third-generation ADC linker, enabling testing of two ADCs in vitro and in vivo later this year.

Is there a key principle or value that guides you as you build your company? Not only myself but also other colleagues and investors in Ymmunobio have had friends and family members die of cancer or suffer through cancer treatment. I lost my best friend to cancer some years ago. We believe we have something very valuable in hand with our new compound that could make a huge difference for future cancer patients. As we all know, cancer won't stop. But we can come up with treatments that are more successful than today’s approaches and give hope to so many more who will suffer from cancer. This is the driving force behind developing this platform: Forming a team and a company that will develop the best anticancer drug there is. Based on this, our collaboration is guided by trust and knowledge including a focus on the essentials.

What is the most important lesson you have learned as a founder?

Lesson one: The right team is crucial, driven by shared goals, not just expertise.
Lesson two: Control costs to maximize funds and fulfill investor trust.
Ymmunobio is a completely virtual company. We do not rent offices or own labs. We outsource everything. This is unconventional and seems a bit strange to many, we have lost some funding because we do this, which we did not understand at all, but we believe that focusing the funds where they really matter will drive success even faster. And that is our goal. To bring our compound to patients ASAP. If all goes well, we can launch our phase I clinical trial in 2026.

Tell us something people don't know about you.
In my young days, I sailed competitively. I also participated in world championships. In addition, I ski, snowboard, play tennis and golf (I was club champion in 1998 in my club in Bad Bellingen, Germany). I also used to fly (single-engine prop), but not anymore.

Any podcasts or books you want to share with us?
My favorite movie: 12 Angry Men with Henry Fonda
My favorite science book: Thinking fast and slow by Daniel Kahneman
My favorite novel: À la Recherche du Temps Perdu by Marcel Proust