A company launched as a joint venture between one of the nation’s largest cancer centers and a company that has developed a monoclonal antibody development platform has raised a new round of financing.
Seattle-based OncoResponse said Tuesday that it had raised $40 million in a Series B funding round led by new investor RiverVest Venture Partners, along with participation from other new investors, including the Qatar Investment Authority and Redmile Group. Existing investors that participated include ARCH Venture Partners, Alexandria Venture Investments, Canaan Partners, Helsinn Investment Fund, HT Family Office and William Marsh Rice University. The company plans to use the funding to shift its focus from drug discovery into drug development.
The company’s approach consists of tapping “elite responders,” meaning patients who have responded well to immunotherapy, and then screening their adaptive immune systems to find antibodies with exceptional reactivity, according to its website. The aim is to address the need of patients who are partial responders or non-responders to therapy. A spokesman for the company said it is not disclosing all of its antigen targets. However, it is focusing its efforts on melanoma, non-small cell lung cancer, prostate cancer, gastric cancer and chronic myeloid leukemia, according to its website.
The company was founded in 2015 as a joint venture between Theraclone Sciences, a company based in Seattle that focuses on antibody screening, and the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. OncoResponse has in-licensed Theraclone’s I-STAR development platform. The company’s last major fundraising was in March 2017, when it closed a $22.5 million Series A financing, initially led by ARCH Venture Partners, Canaan Partners and MD Anderson, with William Marsh Rice University and Alexandria Real Estate Equities participating. Subsequent investments into the round came from Baxalta – now part of Shire – along with GreatPoint Ventures, Helsinn Investment Fund and HT Family Office.
Photo: Getty Images
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