Alibion ceases operations

Biotech is a high-risk business. The chances that a pre-clinical stage project fails to make it to the market are higher than that of succeeding. However, there are only a few founders speaking about failure. One of them is Daniel Schmid Rojas, President of the Board at Alibion. Last week he published a text on Linkedin about the end of Alibion.

In 2018, Alibion AG embarked on developing ALB001 envisioned to be the first personalised medicine against Rheumatoid arthritis (RA). RA is a systematic autoimmune disease that causes inflammation, swelling, and pain in and around the joints and other body organs. Every year, 41 of 100’000 people are diagnosed with RA, yet, current drugs often fail and doctors don’t currently use biomarkers to identify which patients will respond best to each available therapy. This is due in part to the differences in the genetics of RA patients and the severity of symptoms. With ALB001, Alibion was set to pursue the high market potential of RA by addressing the unmet need of a personalized medicine against the disease. To develop ALB001, the company in-licensed a molecule developed by professor Joseph Holoshitz and professor Andrew White from the University of Michigan.

The molecule was carefully selected. There were, however, significant uncertainties that needed to be addressed. The team tested the scientific hypothesis around its asset in the most cost-efficient manner. “We chose to perform the killer experiments early-on during the process knowing what the consequences would be if the results did not go the ideal way”, said Daniel Schmid, CEO and chairman of the Board at Alibion. “In our case, it meant the end of the project”, he adds. At the end of 2020, Alibion had ceased the further development of the molecule and operations.

To fail is to learn
Through his public statement, Schmid also sheds light on failure in the pharmaceutical industry and the startup ecosystem at large. While it is unpleasant for a company to halt a project he believes that one does need to follow the science and that such experiences should be shared openly and perceived as learnings for later projects. The large number of positive responses he received to his post on LinkedIn demonstrates that in this industry, people are very understanding of the situation and that such experiences always lead to long-term improvement.

In Schmid’s opinion, “failure is a fundamental process for the health of the ecosystem as it frees up human and financial resources to be refocused on other projects with a higher probability of success. We should focus on providing smart capital for more startups to test their hypothesis in the fastest and most economical way. We should not strive for a startup ecosystem where the focus is on keeping companies alive forever.”

(SK/RAN)