Galecto Biotech, a Denmark-based developer of treatments for cancer and fibrosis, closed a €79m ($90m) series C round on Friday that featured pharmaceutical firms Bristol Myers-Squibb (BMS), Novo and Merck Group.
Ysios Capital and OrbiMed co-led the round, which included HBM Healthcare Investments, Maverick Ventures, Seventure Partners, Sunstone Capital and OrbiMed Israel, while Novo and Merck contributed through respective investment units Novo Seeds and M Ventures.
Founded in 2011, Galecto Biotech is working on drugs that target a group of proteins known as galectins which are known to be involved in a range of severe disorders, such as fibrosis, inflammation and cancer.
The company’s technology is based on research undertaken by Ulf Nilsson and Hakon Leffler, two professors at Lund University, and Tariq Sethi, a professor at University of Edinburgh who has since joined King’s College London.
Galecto will use the series C funding to conduct several clinical studies including a phase 2/3 trial in Europe and North America for its lead asset, inhaled TD139, which is aimed at idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis that causes a progressive decline in lung function.
The company had signed an agreement with BMS in 2014 that gave the corporate an exclusive 60-day option to acquire it for a total consideration of up to $444m, following the publication of results from a phase 1a/2b trial of TD139.
Galecto published positive results from the trial in March 2017 but BMS chose not to pursue the deal.
Novo Seeds and M Ventures, then known as Merck Serono Ventures, backed a seed round of undisclosed size for Galecto that closed in 2012, alongside Seed Capital and Sunstone Capital. The same four investors returned for a $4m round the following year.
The company’s shareholders also include commercialisation firm Forskarpatent i Syd, which helped the company spin out.
Ysios general partner Karen Wagner, OrbiMed Israel managing director Erez Chimovits and Chau Khuong, a private equity partner at OrbiMed, have joined Galecto’s board of directors in conjunction with the round.
