Enlaza: Creating covalent biologics using engineered amino acids

Incubated by Avalon Ventures, three-and-a-half-year-old Enlaza is moving toward the clinic with $161 million in funding and a platform with which it could create the first covalent biologic drugs.

With technologies in-licensed from the University of California San Francisco and the Scripps Research Institute, San Diego-based Enlaza Therapeutics Inc. is attempting to develop efficacious biologics that have longer occupancy, durable effects, dosing advantages, and reduced systemic exposure, compared with existing non-covalent biologics...