US-based cancer immunotherapy developer Ideaya Biosciences raised $46m yesterday in a series A round featuring pharmaceutical companies Celgene, Novartis and WuXi PharmaTech.
Novartis participated through its Institute of Biomedical Research subsidiary while WuXi’s contribution was made through its orporate venturing vehicle, WuXi Healthcare Ventures.
Alexandria Venture Investments, the corporate venturing unit of property firm Alexandria Real Estate Equities, also took part in the round, as did venture capital firms 5AM Ventures and Canaan Partners.
Founded in August 2015, Ideaya is working on cancer immunotherapies that exploit inherent susceptibilities in tumours. The company hopes to target cancer cells that have been able to hide from the immune system once it is suppressed by a therapy.
The round, which had an initial target of $30m, will enable Ideaya to progress two candidates into clinical trials. Ideaya expects the cash to last until 2019.
Tim Shannon, general partner at Canaan, has joined Ideaya’s board of directors. Robert Hershberg, chief scientific officer at Celgene, and Edward Hu, founding partner at WuXi Healthcare Ventures, will act as board observers.
Ideaya was incubated by 5AM Ventures, which made a seed investment of undisclosed size at the time of its founding.
The company’s co-founder and CEO, Yujiro Hata, was chief operating officer at cancer immunotherapy company Flexus Biosciences prior to its $1.25bn acquisition by Bristol-Myers Squibb in 2015. He is also COO of another Flexus immuno-oncology offshoot, FLX Bio.