Home Health Care VelosBio raises $137M Series B round to support suite of ROR1-targeting cancer...

VelosBio raises $137M Series B round to support suite of ROR1-targeting cancer drugs

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A company developing an antibody-drug conjugate that goes after a target of growing interest among drug developers has closed its latest round of financing.

San Diego-based VelosBio emerged from stealth Wednesday with a Series B funding around worth $137 million. The round was led by Matrix Capital Management and Surveyor Capital, with participation by Adage Capital Management, Cormorant Asset Management, Farallon, Foresite Capital, Janus Henderson Investors, Logos Capital, OrbiMed, multiple T. Rowe Price Associates funds and accounts, Venrock Healthcare Capital Partners, Viking Global Investors and Wellington Management. Existing investor Arix Bioscience announced VelosBio’s $58 million Series A round in 2018.

The company said it plans to use the money to support clinical development of its lead drug candidate, VLS-101. The drug is an antibody-drug conjugate that targets ROR1 and is currently in a Phase I trial of 210 patients with various blood cancers, including B- and T-cell non-Hodgkin’s lymphomas, chronic lymphocytic leukemia, acute lymphoblastic leukemia and acute myeloid leukemia.

“We have made tremendous progress since founding the company in 2017, and this financing reflects strong support for our platform, people and comprehensive development strategy,” VelosBio CEO Dave Johnson said in a statement. “This investment positions us to further the development of our unique pipeline of targeted therapies and continue the expansion of our world-class team of scientists and researchers who share a passion for developing paradigm-shifting cancer therapeutics to improve patients’ lives.”

The company’s pipeline page lists two additional antibody-drug conjugates in preclinical development, as well as a preclinical bispecific antibody that also targets ROR1. Antibody-drug conjugates – of which there are several already on the market – work by delivering a cytotoxic pharmaceutical agent attached to a monoclonal antibody directly to cancer cells.

Other companies have also sought to develop drugs targeting ROR1. These include Sweden-based Kancera, which has a small-molecule ROR1 inhibitor, KAN0441571C, that showed activity against diffuse large B-cell lymphoma in a preclinical study led by the company and researchers at Karolinska University and published last month in the journal Biomedicines.

Photo: Feodora Chiosea, Getty Images

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