DUBLIN – Lycia Therapeutics Inc. raised $50 million in series A funding from founding investor Versant Ventures to take forward yet another novel concept in targeted protein degradation. The new company, which will be headquartered in the San Francisco Bay Area, is building on the work of Carolyn Bertozzi, professor of chemistry at Stanford University and Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) investigator, who has invented bifunctional structures called Lytacs – lysosomal targeting chimeras – which target extracellular or circulating proteins for internalization and lysosomal degradation by tethering them to lysosome targeting receptors at the cell surface.
PARIS – Robocath SAS, of Rouen, France, has secured a new $43 million funding round to boost roll-out of its R-One robotic system for treating vascular disease. This series C funding was led by Hong Kong-based Microport Scientific Corp.
Hong Kong – South Korea’s Lunit Inc. is currently in the process of applying for U.S. FDA approval for Lunit Insight Mmg, its AI software that analyzes mammography images to detect breast cancer. Other markets that the company targets entering include South America, the Middle East, and Asia Pacific, Jussarang Lee, communications manager at Lunit, told BioWorld. Founded in 2013, the Seoul-based company uses artificial intelligence to develop cancer diagnostics and therapeutics.
In a big day of setting up IPOs for launch, the charge is being led by Royalty Pharma, a buyer of biopharmaceutical royalties and an industry funder, which is aiming at a $2 billion offering. That massive number is more than half of the total biotech offerings brought in through May.
Tel Aviv-based Alpha Tau Medical Ltd. raised $26 million in a series B financing. The round was led by previous investors, Savit Capital, Medison Ventures, and Ourcrowd, as well as new private and family office investors hailing from North America and Israel. The new funds will be used to continue trials of the company's Alpha DaRT (Diffusing Alpha Radiation Emitters Therapy) alpha-radiation cancer therapy for solid tumors and expand manufacturing facilities.
LONDON – Base Genomics Ltd. has raised $11 million in an oversubscribed seed round to commercialize a new liquid biopsy technology for detecting DNA methylation, invented in the U.K. at the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research at Oxford University.
Money raised through biopharma financings so far in 2020 is double the amount raised within the same timeframe of 2019, partly due to two large financings completed in May by Sanofi SA, which is working on candidates to treat or prevent COVID-19, the disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
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