More money on the books for billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong’s sprawling NantWorks: Cancer immunotherapy subsidiary NantCell just raised $75 million, according to an SEC filing.
It comes from one investor – ostensibly Soon-Shiong, who has committed more than one billion to the NantWorks names. But it’s important to watch how the funding trickles down. Offshoot NantBioscience, for instance, recently raised $100 million.
NantCell was launched this January, with news of a licensing agreement with Amgen. NantCell acquired the rights to develop and commercialize AMG 47 – ganitumab – which was previously in Phase 3 trials at Amgen for pancreatic cancer. Testing was halted in 2012, however, because interim results showed little improvements in that indication.
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Despite its previous failings, NantCell plans to use the precision medicine approach with ganitumab. Soon-Shiong said in a statement at the time:
It is our belief that the future of cancer care will involve combination therapy with low dose, metronomic use of multiple chemotherapeutic agents, but combined also with immuno-oncology molecules, or with engineered killer cells targeted at the proteomic profile of the specific tumor, regardless of the anatomical type.
The development of antibody molecules such as IGF-1R will require next generation sequencing at the proteomic level with a deep level of molecular interrogation to establish the appropriate combination with other drugs.
Notably, NantCell was involved in a recent deal with San Diego-based Sorrento Therapeutics. NantWorks acquired a next-gen version of Abraxane in a deal worth up to $1.3 billion. About $100 million of that is being paid as NantCell equity. MedCity News wrote at the time:
Sorrento Therapeutics, a San Diego biotech, teamed up with NantWorks this past December. The two built out yet another arm of the Soon-Shiong outfit – called Nantibody– that focuses on cancer immunotherapies. This involved $10 million in cash upfront for Sorrento Therapeutics and $100 million in NantCell equity.