The round was led by new investors as well as existing investors.
Immuno-oncology company Forty Seven Inc., wrapped up a Series B financing worth $75 million. The round was led by new investor Wellington Management Company with existing investors Clarus, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Sutter Hill Ventures and GV (Google Ventures) participating.
Forty Seven was founded by members of Stanford University’s Institute of Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine. It has exclusive licenses to a broad package of intellectual property from Stanford, including seven issued U.S. patents, four issued foreign patents, and over 100 pending patent applications worldwide that cover several product candidates targeting cancer immune evasion pathways.
At its heart, the company focuses on making the adaptive immune system recognize and attack tumors. The monies raised will be used to continue development of Hu5F9-G4, an antibody against CD47, which works similar to the way checkpoint inhibitors do. Forty Seven is evaluating Hu5F9-G4 in five ongoing monotherapy Phase Ib and combination therapy Phase Ib/II clinical trials in patients with solid tumors, leukemia or lymphoma.
With the funds, those trials will be expanded and new trials initiated that combine Hu5F9-G4 with T-cell checkpoint inhibitors. CD47 convinces the immune cells not to attack the tumors. Inhibiting CD47 allows for the immune system to do its job.
“Forty Seven continues to make tremendous progress across multiple clinical trials,” said Mark McCamish, the company’s chief executive officer, in a statement. “The financing allows us to rigorously explore the clinical response of different tumors to Hu5F9-G4 mono- and combination therapy and determine the optimal pathway to rapidly bring this new treatment option to patients.”
The company launched in February 2016 with a $75 million Series A financing. Additional funding for clinical trials were provided by the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine and the Medical Research Council (MRC) UK.
In October 2016, Forty Seven signed a deal with Switzerland’s Lonza to manufacture the clinical supply of the company’s therapeutic antibodies. Under the deal, Lonza will manufacture antibodies at its facility in Slough, UK for Forty Seven’s clinical trials. Lonza performed the cell-line development for Hu5F9-G4 and under this deal optimizes the production process for it in a 1000 liter single-use bioreactor. The agreement is for five years.
In November 2016, Forty Seven was awarded $10.2 million by CIRM, California’s Stem Cell Agency, to use a combination therapy to attack colorectal cancer patients’ cancer that have the KRAS genetic mutation. The funding was for Forty Seven to investigate using one of its antibody with the chemotherapy drug cetuximab.
Of the new funding round, Dennis Henner, board member of Forty Seven and managing director of Clarus, said in a statement, “Forty Seven’s Hu5F9-G4 is a first-in-class CD47 antagonist that, based on strong science, preclinical and emerging clinical data, has potential applications in many different tumor types as a monotherapy or in combination therapy with tumor-targeting antibodies and potentially with other immuno-oncology agents. With this new financing, the company will be able to generate clinical data in multiple settings and will be well positioned to initiate registration trials.”
