The three companies will use their proceeds to support the development of their pipelines through additional business development opportunities.
One month after it announced clinical and analytical validation of its liquid biopsy diagnostic test, InterVenn Biosciences raked in $201 million in a Series C financing round.
The Bay Area-based company said the funds will be used to advance the development and potential commercialization of its liquid biopsy capabilities. In particular, the financing will be used to accelerate the development of Dawn, the company’s assay for immune checkpoint inhibitor response prediction. It will also expand its network of partners for GLORI, its AI-driven glycoproteomics platform, which it recently validated.
The company’s Dawn platform is under development and is expected to be available for use next year. Regarding its glycoproteomics platform, InterVenn said it has been used to develop 16 separate use cases across oncology indications and other disease areas.
The promising results from the validation for the glycoproteomics platform has bolstered the company’s research. InterVenn intends to invest in the development of liquid biopsy solutions across the oncology spectrum and other diseases that could benefit from such a test.
The financing from the Series C will also enable the company to expand investment in what it called a “partnership ecosystem” to broaden insights into new biomarkers and therapies.
“With this fundraising, we believe InterVenn is ideally positioned to unlock the glycoproteome as a novel and fundamental layer in biology, which will reveal a myriad of new insights on how to diagnose and treat disease,” Aldo Carrascoso, co-founder and chief executive officer of InterVenn Biosciences said in a statement.
The Series C financing round was led by new investors SoftBank Group, Heritage Provider Network, Irving Investors and Highside Capital Management. Additionally, existing investors Amplify Partners, Anzu Partners, Genoa Ventures and True Ventures participated in the round.
InterVenn wasn’t the only company to announce a significant fundraising. Another Bay Area company, T-knife Therapeutics raised $110 million in a Series B round. The company will use the proceeds from the financing round to increase its headcount, bolster manufacturing capacity, and advance its investigational pipeline of T-cell receptor (TCR) engineered T cell therapies (TCR-T).
The company is harnessing the capabilities of its proprietary HuTCR transgenic mouse platform to discover and develop a portfolio of TCR-T programs to treat patients with solid tumors. The company’s lead investigational candidate is TK-8001, which targets MAGE-A1 positive cancers. T-knife is planning a Phase I/II study in the fourth quarter of this year to assess TK-8001.
T-knife CEO Thomas M. Soloway said the company has made significant progress over the past 12 months researching TCR capabilities to address patient needs. He thanked the support of the investors for backing the company’s vision and goals.
The financing round was led by Fidelity Management & Research Company, LLC. Other investors who participated in the round include LSP, Qatar Investment Authority (QIA), Casdin Capital, Sixty Degree Capital, and CaaS Capital. Existing investors RA Capital Management, Versant Ventures and founding investor Andera Partners also participated.
China’s Zentera Therapeutics also raised $75 million in a Series B financing round. The company will use the proceeds from the round to support the development of three different candidates, its WEE1 inhibitor ZN-c3, its oral SERD ZN-c5, and its BCL-2 inhibitor ZN-d5. Additionally, Zentera will expand its pipeline through additional business development opportunities.
The financing round was led by founding investor OrbiMed Advisors Asia and Tybourne Capital Management. Participating investors include Avidity Partners, Casdin Capital, Surveyor Capital (a Citadel company), Farallon Capital Management, Lilly Asia Ventures (LAV), Logos Capital, Perceptive Advisors, Redmile Group and Viking Global Investors.
“Since inception last year, Zentera has made tremendous progress on both the clinical and corporate fronts, advancing its first two candidates into the clinic… as well as growing its passionate team of scientists and researchers,” Anthony Sun, chairman and CEO of Zentera said in a statement.
“Looking ahead, we believe we are well positioned to become a leading Chinese biopharmaceutical company and are one step closer to accomplishing our goal of delivering life-changing oncology drugs to patients globally,” he added.
