Business Description

Overview We are a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on developing novel immunotherapeutic drug candidates for treating autoimmune and inflammatory diseases within the immunology and inflammation ("I&I") space. Helping patients and their families is the guiding principle at the heart of Barinthus Bio. We aim to achieve this by developing truly transformational and highly disease-specific immunotherapies. We are prioritizing the development of a pipeline for I&I indications enabled by our proprietary and highly differentiated platform for promoting immune tolerance, referred to as SNAP-TI, that are designed to guide patient's T cells to reduce inflammation and restore the natural state of immune non-responsiveness to healthy tissue. Our lead candidate, VTP-1000, is designed to restore immune non-responsiveness to gluten in patients with celiac disease, and is currently being assessed in a Phase 1 clinical trial. Based on encouraging preclinical data, we believe that the SNAP-TI platform has the potential to impact multiple other I&I indications. We are also exploring partnership opportunities for VTP-300, a product candidate to treat chronic hepatitis B ("CHB") that harnesses viral vector platform technologies, consisting of Chimpanzee Adenovirus Oxford ("ChAdOx") and Modified Vaccinia Ankara ("MVA"), which are designed to increase disease-specific CD8+ T cells. VTP-300 is a Phase 2 immunotherapeutic treatment modality that is a component of a treatment regimen to establish functional cure in patients who are chronically infected by the hepatitis B virus. We believe our core capabilities at the intersection of T cell immunology and immunotherapeutic technology platforms combined with our track record of successfully executing development path activities uniquely position us to navigate towards delivering promising new treatments for patients with autoimmune and inflammatory diseases and building value for shareholders. Our Approach We are leveraging the latest understanding of how the immune system's T cells naturally function to control disease. Research has shown that T cells are key to our body’s ability to identify and respond to threats through recognition of antigens. Disease can occur when the T cell response is either inappropriate, as occurs in autoimmunity, or inadequate, as often occurs in chronic viral infections or cancer. Many autoimmune and inflammatory diseases are characterized by an inappropriate or overactive immune response caused by an imbalance in the T cell population. T effector ("Teff") cells that normally fight infections and cancer can inappropriately attack the body and overwhelm the regulatory T ("Treg") cells that are meant to prevent inflammation. While there has been incredible progress in the treatment options over the last two decades, current therapies still rely heavily on the use of non-specific immunosuppressive agents and supportive therapies. These may efficiently dampen inflammation and slow disease progression, but they often require lifelong treatment and their lack of specificity for the pathogenic mechanism can lead to several, sometimes life-threatening, side effects. Therefore, there remains a need for more targeted, curative therapies that directly address the T cell (Treg/Teff) imbalance underlying many autoimmune and inflammatory diseases. Fortunately, improved understanding of the cause of inflammatory diseases is allowing the identification of the specific antigens that Teff cells are attacking. In autoimmunity, Teff cells recognize and attack tissues harboring self-antigens, such as pancreatic beta islet cell associated antigens in type-1 diabetes. Knowledge of the problematic antigens that the Teff cells are responding to allows for the development of highly specific treatments that only target the T cells involved in the disease and may provide a less aggressive and potentially curative approach. We aim to directly address the disease process underlying autoimmunity and other inflammatory diseases by developing antigen-specific immune tolerance ("ASIT") therapies based on our proprietary SNAP-TI technology platform. Our approach is to use SNAP-TI to provide the immune system with problematic antigens within an appropriate tolerogenic context that promotes a reduction in Teff cells and increase in Treg cells, aiming to restore the natural state of immune tolerance and control over disease.…