Cidara Therapeutics has emerged from relative obscurity with a new name, a new antifungal drug platform and a $32 million Series A financing round to help bring it to clinical trial over the next 18 months.

The financing will help Cidara advance candidates from its Cloudbreak targeted immunotherapy platform, and bring its novel antifungal drug biafungin into human clinical studies.

The San Diego biotech was founded in 2012 as K2 Therapeutics in Boston, but has since taken on a new leader – Jeff Stein, the former CEO of San Diego-based antibiotic maker Therapeutics, which was acquired last year by Cubist for more than $700 million. (Notably, Stein blogged about his decision to head up Cidara here.)

Indeed, Stein has pivoted from the antibacterials to the antifungal space with the newly christened Cidara. A growing number of patients are in dire need of new antifungal treatments, he said – particularly those with compromised immune systems, such as cancer patients and organ transplant recipients. These are patient populations with highly aggressive and costly treatment regimens, but they’re still at great risk of acquiring potentially fatal fungal infections.

“These two patient populations are highly susceptible to fungal infection, and when they do get infections the consequence is very severe – they have a 50 percent chance of dying,” Stein said. “Our objective is to rewrite the book on how such infections are treated.”

That’s because antifungals are an area lacking in new drug innovation. About $4 billion in drugs sales worldwide can be attributed to treating systemic fungal infections – but only one novel class of antifungals has been introduced to the marketplace in the past 20 years, Cidara said.

More than 500,000 U.S. patients are treated each year for fungal infection, costing the U.S. healthcare system more than $8 billion, Cidara said.

The company also plans to explore potential partnering opportunities over the next few months, Stein said. He added that the flexibility of developing a small molecular therapy agent helps open the door for many applications beyond antifungals – Cidara plans to explore antibacterials and antiparisitic treatments farther down the road.

Cidara will relocate to San Diego, with plans to move into the old Trius headquarters with a healthy smattering of its former key staff. Stein said he plans to employ 20 by year’s end.

Investment in the financing comes from 5AM Ventures, Aisling Capital, Frazier Healthcare and InterWest Partners. Cidara was founded by Kevin Forrest of 5A Vetures; Kevin Judice, former CEO of publicly traded Bay Area antibacterial maker Achaogen Pharmaceuticals; and Harvard University sepsis researcher H. Shaw Warren. Forrest and Judice have joined Cidara as chief operating officer and chief scientific officer, respectively, and Warren has joined the new company’s scientific advisory board.

Stein said it’s unclear what kind of market Cidara’s new antifungals could command – it all depends on the eventual pricing of the drug. Because the company will go after a patient population that is in critical need of powerful drugs, it’ll be able to set “premium pricing,” Stein said. It plans to sidestep the more common fungal infections whose treatments already line the over-the-counter sections of drug stores.

“Yeast infections and toe nail fungus are huge markets, but our focus really is to save people’s lives,” Stein said. “Few companies are addressing the need for really powerful antifungals, so there’s a high degree of receptivity – and pricing flexibility – when people are dying.”