Enumeral Biomedical

Enumeral Biomedical was a biotechnology firm founded in 2009, specializing in the development of monoclonal antibody immunotherapies. The company's scientific founder was J. Christopher Love, an Associate Professor of Chemical Engineering at MIT, with John Rydzewski serving as Executive Chairman and Arthur H. Tinkelenberg as President and CEO. The company was established to consolidate various immunoprofiling technologies licensed from prominent institutions including Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, and Massachusetts General Hospital.

Enumeral's core business centered on its proprietary 'immunoprofiling' platform, a technology that enabled the scanning of the human immune microenvironment to identify and validate potential drug candidates. This platform could analyze immune cell function from small human tissue biopsy samples, a feature intended to guide the selection of lead candidates and potentially stratify patients for clinical trials. The company aimed to create a pipeline of antibody therapeutics targeting immune checkpoint proteins like PD-1, OX40, and Lag3 to treat cancer and inflammatory diseases. A key aspect of its business model involved forming collaborations with larger pharmaceutical companies; a notable partnership was established with Merck & Co. to use the platform for identifying cellular responses to immuno-oncology therapies in colorectal cancer tissues.

In August 2014, Enumeral became a publicly traded company on the OTCQB market under the ticker "ENUM" through a reverse merger with a shell company, Cerulean Group, Inc. This event coincided with a private placement financing of $21.5 million. Despite this funding and achieving some preclinical milestones, the company faced significant financial difficulties. By May 2017, Enumeral announced it had insufficient cash to continue operations, leading to the layoff of its R&D staff and eviction from its Cambridge headquarters. In January 2018, Enumeral Biomedical filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and its assets, including its antibody discovery and development programs, were sold to Xoma Corporation for $1.6 million.

Keywords: immunoprofiling, antibody discovery, immunotherapy, monoclonal antibodies, immuno-oncology, checkpoint inhibitors, PD-1 inhibitors, cancer therapeutics, autoimmune diseases, drug discovery platform, human immune microenvironment, single-cell analysis, tumor microenvironment, asset acquisition, Xoma Corporation, reverse merger, biotechnology, defunct company, preclinical development, colorectal cancer research