Rain Therapeutics, headquartered in Fremont, California, closed on a tranched Series A financing of $18.4 million.
Rain Therapeutics, headquartered in Fremont, California, closed on a tranched Series A financing of $18.4 million. The round was led by Biotechnology Value Fund (BVF) and followed by Perceptive Advisors, Auckland UniServices Limited’s Inventors Fund and other private investors. The round followed a $1 million convertible note financing that wrapped in late-2017.
The company expects to use the proceeds to push its lead program, Tarloxotinib (Tarlox) into clinical development. Tarlox is being investigated for patients with EGFR and ErbB Exon 20 insertion mutations in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). It plans to start a Phase II trial in the first half of 2019.
“With the proceeds from recent financings we can complete a Phase II, proof-of-concept study and continue to advance Tarloxotinib,” said Avanish Vellanki, Rain’s co-founder and chief executive officer, in a statement. “Our goal is to provide Exon 20 patients with a novel treatment option that results in strong anti-tumor responses while avoiding the debilitating, dose-limiting EGFR toxicities in the gut and skin that are associated with conventional small molecule inhibitors.”
Vellanki is a former investment banker. His most recent biotech position was chief business officer of Aptose Biosciences. Between Aptos and Rain, he was cofounder and chairman of the board of Independence Brewing Company, one of the first craft microbreweries for the domestic Indian market.
As part of the raise, Gorjan Hrustanovic, with BVF, is joining the company’s board of directors.
The company acquired global development and commercialization rights for Tarlox through an exclusive licensing deal with the University of Auckland.
The drug’s target population has epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) mutations in NSCLC, but don’t respond to typical EGFR inhibitors. The company believes that drugs that effectively inhibit EGFR signaling in the tumor will have significant side effects, and that its drug will be more tolerated. Tarlox is a hypoxia-activated prodrug of a pan-ErbB inhibitor.
The total funding for the company is now $19.4 million. Vellanki told FierceBiotech, “It stands to reason that we should see activity in all EGFR-driven cancers, of which there are many. This [study] is in large part a proof of principle not just for the Exon 20 subpopulation, but for the wild-type EGFR-driven cancer population. We think any tumor population dependent on EGFR signaling could be an opportunity for us.”
At this time, Rain Therapeutics has three employees, but it expends to expand to 12 to 15 in the next year or two.
Robert Doebele, co-founder and associate professor of medicine and director of the Thoracic Oncology Research Initiative at the University of Colorado, said in a statement, “Targeting wildtype EGFR, or wildtype EGFR-like tumors has always been very challenging with conventional small molecule inhibitors because of the abundance of EGFR in healthy tissues. Patients with Exon 20 lung cancer show an addiction to EGFR, however the resemblance of EGFR Exon 20 to EGFR wildtype suggests most conventional strategies will be limited by toxicity. With its novel mechanism of action, Tarlox has the potential to address this inherent, unmet challenge in Exon 20 patients.”
