The management team that built up Pharmion and sold it to Celgene last year for $2.9 billion have regrouped, lined up $145 million in funding and launched a new biotech company that will follow their old business plan.
Boulder, CO-based Clovis Oncology plans to partner up on early-stage cancer programs and take them through development to regulatory approval. Investors in Clovis include Domain Associates, New Enterprise Associates, Versant Ventures, Aberdare Ventures, Abingworth, Frazier Healthcare Ventures, ProQuest Investments and the company's management team.
Armed with ample cash, they believe that the time is ripe to do deals.
"At the same time that the discovery capabilities in biotech and pharma companies have yielded a large number of promising early stage anti-cancer compounds, the combination of more limited development capacity and increasing financial constraints reduces the opportunity to bring many of these compounds through clinical development and to market," said Patrick J. Mahaffy, Clovis' president and CEO. "Clovis is focused on partnering with these discovery-based companies and taking responsibility for developing and commercializing innovative products that may ultimately provide significant benefit to cancer patients."
- check out the Clovis release
- read the story from the Denver Business Journal