Just weeks after kick-starting its phase 1 test, Arch Oncology has gathered $50 million in financing to help see its immuno-oncology asset through the clinic.
The Californian biotech’s drug, AO-176 is currently being put through its paces in a phase 1 trial in “select solid tumors,” with the latest cash boost going to help those efforts, as well towards its pipeline, said Arch Oncology CEO Julie Cherrington, Ph.D.
This latest financing included Arch Oncology’s existing investors, RiverVest Venture Partners, Roche Venture Fund and 3x5 Partners, and was led by new investor Lightchain (Scottrade founder and former CEO Rodger Riney’s family office).
“Over the past year, the Arch Oncology team under Julie’s leadership has successfully executed on plans to advance AO-176 from the laboratory, through IND submission, and into the clinic,” said John McKearn, Ph.D., managing director, RiverVest Venture Partners and chairman of the board at the biotech.
“We believe AO-176 has a best-in-class profile among agents in the anti-CD47 space and we are excited to see the progress advancing the pipeline.”
It joins other young biotechs, including the Roche-partnered Forty Seven, a Stanford University spinout that got off a $75 million series B and is working on combo test with its leading drug Hu5F9-G4, as well as Trillium Therapeutics and its lead candidate is TTI-621, a SIRPaFc fusion protein designed to stop the CD47 signal tumor cells use to evade immune attacks.