Eikon’s lead candidate, EIK1001, is being tested for advanced melanoma. The candidate is currently in late-stage development, which the biotech will fund using Wednesday’s series D raise.
Eikon Therapeutics raked in $350.7 million in a series D fundraising round announced Wednesday. That is money the biotech will put to good use as its lead candidate EIK1001 enters Phase III trials for advanced melanoma.
Of note, Eikon’s news release explicitly announced the “initial closing” of its series D—which suggests that potential funders still have the chance to join the round later on. Indeed, in an interview with Endpoints News, CEO Roger Perlmutter said he anticipates other investors will pitch in later this year.
Perlmutter is also eyeing an IPO exit for Eikon, he told Endpoints¸ but he has yet to specify a timeline. “I am confident that Eikon Therapeutics will be a public company,” he said. “We’ll chose the right time to do that as it makes sense.”
Eikon will use its series D raise to support the late-stage development of EIK1001, an investigational agonist of the toll-like receptors 7 and 8 being studied in a Phase III trial for advanced melanoma. Phase I data, presented at the 2024 American Society of Clinical Oncology Annual Meeting last June, showed that EIK1001 elicited a 14% complete or partial response rate in patients with advanced solid tumors. Disease control rate was 48%.
With Wednesday’s haul, Eikon has now raised upwards of $1.1 billion since its founding in 2019, as per the biotech’s announcement. This total includes $106 million from its series C round in June 2023, and a $517.6 million injection from its series B in January 2022. Throughout these rounds, Eikon has consistently been supported by a cadre of backers, including T. Rowe Price, Foresite Capital and Soros Capital.
Aside from EIK1001, Eikon is also working on EIK1003, a highly selective PARP1 blocker that is being tested in Phase I studies for breast, ovarian, prostate and pancreatic cancer. The biotech is also advancing another PARP1 blocker, dubbed EIK1004, to treat brain cancer. EIK1004 is in early-stage development.
With its nearly $351 million round on Wednesday, Eikon comes in just behind Verdiva Bio, which last month debuted with $410 million, funds it will use to advance a potentially first-in-class oral GLP-1 receptor agonist. Several other biotechs have managed to raise hefty sums this year, including Kardigan’s $300 million Series A for cardiovascular drug development and Ouro’s $120-million launch to reset the immune system.
