A drugmaker developing cancer therapeutics based on patient immune responses has raised its latest round of venture capital funding.
Redwood City, California-based Atreca said Tuesday that it had raised $125 million in a Series C round, led by an undisclosed large, healthcare-focused fund based in the US that is also an existing investor. Other existing investors participating in the round included Wellington Management Company and Cormorant Asset Management, along with new investors Aisling Capital, Boxer Capital of the Tavistock Group, EcoR1 Capital, Redmile Group, Samsara BioCapital and funds managed by Tekla Capital Management.
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The unnamed fund also co-led Atreca’s Series B financing round worth $35 million, which it completed in August 2017, alongside then-new investor Wellington.
Atreca’s pipeline page lists three programs. ATRC-101’s mechanism of action involves driver antigen engagement, and the drug being targeted to breast, lung and colon cancers, with first-in-human studies planned to start next year. ATRC-201 is planned to enter clinical development in 2020 in multiple solid tumors, with directed killing as the mechanism of action. Meanwhile, the company has multiple other solid tumor programs that it plans to initiate in 2021 and beyond.
The company describes its approach as inverting the traditional drug-discovery paradigm. Active patient B-cell responses, it says, provide human antibodies that serve as the foundation of its therapeutic candidates, as well as providing access to novel targets and biology.
Another company that targets patient immune responses, OncoResponse, said Tuesday that it had raised $40 million in a Series B funding round in which one of Atreca’s new investors, Redmile Group, also participated. The approach of OncoResponse, which is based in Seattle, involves screening the adaptive immune systems of patients who have responded well to immunotherapy in order to find antibodies with exceptional reactivity, thereby enabling the company to address the needs of patients who are partial responders or non-responders to immunotherapy.
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