DUBLIN – Lassen Therapeutics Inc. is following the Enleofen Bio Pte Ltd. playbook by targeting the interleukin-11 receptor (IL-11R) as a novel approach to combating both fibrosis and cancer. It’s a move that paid off handsomely earlier this year for Singapore-based Enleofen, which entered a broad alliance in fibrosis with Boehringer Ingelheim GmbH, which could generate up to $1 billion in milestones for each product emanating from the partnership. San Diego-based Lassen is now laying claim to that space as well and has just emerged from stealth mode, having closed but not previously disclosed a $31 million series A round.
C4 Therapeutics Inc., a company focused on destroying disease-causing proteins via degradation, has closed a $170 million financing intended to help move four cancer candidates into the clinic by the end of 2022.
Glaxosmithkline plc (GSK) will collaborate in three of Ideaya Biosciences Inc.’s synthetic lethality programs, MAT2A (methionine adenosyltransferase 2a), Pol Theta (polymerase theta) and Werner Helicase, in a deal that Ideaya estimated could be worth billions.
LONDON - Ona Therapeutics SL has raised €30 million (US$33.9 million) in a series A round, providing the means to advance a new method of treating metastases by blocking the lipid metabolism of cancer cells.
DUBLIN – Etherna Immunotherapies NV raised €34 million (US$38.2 million) in a series B funding round to progress its pipeline of mRNA-based vaccines for cancer and infectious disease.
Two months earlier than expected, Pharmamar SA and partner Jazz Pharmaceuticals plc received an accelerated FDA approval of Zepzelca to treat relapsed metastatic small-cell lung cancer patients.
Whole genome sequencing is not part of treating patients in practice – or even involved in most clinical trials of drug candidates. But C2i Genomics Inc. is working to make that a reality. It applies pattern recognition to whole genome sequencing to create an individualized fingerprint for a given patient’s tumor. The New York-based startup has raised a $12 million series A round to back the development of its technology, which came out of Cornell and the New York Genome Center.
BEIJING – CAR T therapy developer JW Therapeutics (Shanghai) Co. Ltd. raised another $100 million this week after securing $90 million in series A round in 2018. The funds will continue to go toward its lead program, JWCAR-029, a CAR T-cell product targeting CD19 that is now in a phase II study.
Checkmate Pharmaceuticals Inc., of Cambridge, Mass., completed an $85 million series C to continue developing CMP-001, a differentiated Toll-like receptor 9 (TLR9) agonist, for treating anti-PD-1-refractory melanoma and to study additional indications that include front-line melanoma and head and neck squamous cell carcinoma.
DUBLIN – Shares in Genmab A/S gained 5% during trading on Nasdaq June 10 on news of an oncology alliance with Abbvie Inc., in which it is banking $750 million up front and up to $3.15 billion in development, regulatory and commercial milestones for up to seven next-generation antibody-based therapeutics.