UK-based antifungal drug developer F2G received $60m in funding yesterday from a consortium featuring pharmaceutical firms Novartis, which participated through its corporate venturing subsidiary Novartis Venture Fund, and Novo.
The round was led by healthcare asset manager Sectoral Asset Management and included Brace Pharma Capital, an investment firm formed by pharmaceutical company EMS, as well as Aisling Capital, Advent Life Sciences, Sunstone Capital and Merifin Capital.
F2G is working on treatments for fungal infections based on a class of antifungal agents known as orotomides. These agents are able to tackle moulds that have proven resistant to currently available treatments.
The company will use the capital to move its lead candidate to completion of a registration study and to further develop its pipeline. Martin Edwards, senior partner at Novo, and Maha Katabi, private equity partner at Sectoral, will join F2G’s board of directors.
Novartis previously took part in a $30m funding round in 2012 alongside Advent, Sunstone, Merifin, K Nominees and Astellas Venture Fund, the corporate venturing arm of pharmaceutical company Astellas.
BankInvest led an $11.6m round for the company in 2008 that featured Astellas, K Nominees and Merifin.
Ian Nicholson, chief executive of F2G, said: “F2G has made significant progress in the last 12 months and this financing, achieved in a tough funding environment, demonstrates investor confidence in our novel class of therapies and outstanding team.
“We welcome our new investors to the company and thank our existing investors for their continuing support and confidence in our team and strategy. We are now well positioned to achieve our goal of product approval in an area with significant unmet medical need and look forward to conducting our pivotal registration study.”