Canada-based cancer treatment developer Fusion Pharmaceuticals raised a $105m series B round. The round featured medical group Johnson & Johnson and was led by oncology technology provider Varian Medical Systems. It also included another corporate investor Pivotal BioVenture Partners, the healthcare investment firm of property developer Nan Fung. Johnson and Johnson committed capital through its corporate venturing subsidiary Johnson & Johnson Innovation – JJDC. The transaction took Fusion’s total funding to $151m.
Founded in 2014, Fusion develops cancer treatment that will employ targeted alpha therapy, in which alpha medical isotopes are combined with antibodies or other targeting molecules to destroy tumours without affecting surrounding tissue.
The cancer treatment space, one of humanity’s unending quests in medicine, has expectedly attracted much corporate backing in minority stake rounds. As the GCV Analytics data suggest, corporate-backed rounds in such companies increased in both volume and dollar value – from 35 deals worth an estimated $728m in 2014 to 82 rounds, worth an estimated $4.92bn. This implies a more than two times increase in deal count and nearly seven times in dollar figures, reflecting overall rising valuations in recent years.
