Tumor-agnostic therapy developer Black Diamond Therapeutics Inc. has completed an oversubscribed series C financing of $85 million. The Cambridge, Mass.-based company said proceeds will help it advance candidates targeting oncogenic driver mutations of the ErbB kinases in EGFR and HER2, starting with a combined phase I/II trial of its most advanced candidate next year.

HONG KONG – Rapt Therapeutics Inc., of San Francisco, and Seoul, South Korea-based Hanmi Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd. entered a license agreement for Rapt’s FLX-475 in Asia. FLX-475 is an oral, small-molecule CCR4 antagonist for cancer treatment. 

Civetta Therapeutics LLC will take a $53 million series A to advance its platform and programs based on beta-propeller proteins that mediate protein-to-protein interactions. Those proteins can become involved in cancers, neurodegeneration and metabolic disorders, with oncology being the company’s initial focus.

DUBLIN – Imcheck Therapeutics SAS raised €48 million (US$53.2 million) in a series B financing round to move a pipeline of antibodies targeting gamma delta T cells into the clinic.

HONG KONG – Seoul, South Korea-based GI Innovation Inc. has licensed to Nanjing, Jiangsu-based Simcere Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd. rights to its immunotherapy drug candidate, G1-101, a bispecific CD80/interleukin2 (IL-2) variant fusion protein.

SINGAPORE – While a lot of focus is placed on phase III trials and the subsequent approvals, panelists during the ESMO Asia Congress pointed to the importance of designing the right kind of phase I trials, from reaching global populations to using appropriate endpoints.

SINGAPORE – Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd. presented new findings from its phase III ALTA-1L trial evaluating its Alunbrig (brigatinib) vs. crizotinib in adults with advanced anaplastic lymphoma kinase-positive (ALK+) non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) who had not received a prior ALK inhibitor, showing Alunbrig reduced the risk of disease progression or death by 76% after more than two years of follow-up.

SINGAPORE – Population-based cancer registries were a frequent focus of discussion at the ESMO Asia Congress.

HONG KONG – Lucence Diagnostics Pte Ltd., a genomic medicine company headquartered in Singapore, has secured $20 million in series A investment. The company is focused on inventing liquid biopsy tests for cancer screening and personalizing care. 

LONDON – It used to be called junk DNA, but now Ervaxx Ltd. has shown the noncoding parts of the genome are a treasure trove of novel cancer antigens. Two years after spinning out of the Francis Crick Institute in London, the company has emerged with a $17.5 million series A funding and a fully formed platform for systematically discovering coding sequences for what it refers to as "dark antigens." (The name is trademarked.)