Startups, BioPharma

Revolution Medicines secures $100M equity round, aiming for hard-to-reach oncology targets

The company is targeting pathways such as SHP2 and KRAS G12C. RAS mutations have been an attractive target in oncology due to the central role they play in cancers.

venture capital,money,business,Investor

A firm developing drugs that target what it calls “notorious” pathways in oncology has raised a big round of equity financing.

Redwood City, California-based Revolution Medicines said Tuesday that it had closed a $100 million Series C financing that it will put toward pipeline programs including drugs that go after targets in RAS, a pathway that plays a key role in the development of cancers but has often been considered unreachable by pharmaceutical means. The Tavistock Group’s Boxer Capital led the round, which Cormorant Capital, Deerfield Management, Fidelity Management & Research, Vivo Capital and Biotechnology Value Fund joined. Series B investors, including Nextech Invest, Schroder Adveq, The Column Group, Casdin Capital and Third Rock Ventures also joined the round.

The company’s pipeline includes programs targeting the KRAS G12C pathway. While long considered undruggable due to the lack of sufficient “pockets” for pharmaceutical agents to penetrate, KRAS G12C was recently validated as a target thanks to data presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting last month by Amgen for its drug, AMG 510. The Phase I data – mostly in patients with non-small cell lung cancer and colorectal cancer – showed that five of 10 NSCLC patients experienced a partial response, while four had stable disease; in CRC, 13 of 18 patients achieved stable disease.

Another drug candidate from Revolution, RMC-4630, targets SHP2, a protein that plays an important role in modulating cell growth signaling activity through the RAS pathway. The drug is currently in Phase I/II development under a partnership with French drugmaker Sanofi.

“Our position at the forefront of RAS pathway-focused therapeutics development is powered by a deep commitment to RAS pathway biology and our differentiated drug-discovery capabilities,” Revolution CEO Mark Goldsmith said in a statement. “Our innovation engine enables the creation of sophisticated drug candidates that inhibit protein targets that defy conventional drug-discovery methods, which we believe will bring the promise of targeted therapy to inadequately served cancer patients.”

Other startups have been diving into the “undruggable” space as well. Last month, South San Francisco, California-based Frontier Medicines launched with $67 million in Series A financing, a round in which Deerfield Management also participated.

Photo: claudenakagawa, Getty Images

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