UK-based cancer therapy developer Artios Pharma secured $153m in a series C round on Tuesday from investors including pharmaceutical firms Merck Group, Novartis and Pfizer.
Investment firms Omega Funds and TCG Crossover co-led the round, which included Avidity Partners, Invus, Deep Track Capital, Sofinnova Partners, Tetragon Financial Group, RTW Investments, Soleus Capital, Piper Heartland Healthcare Capital, CaaS Capital Management and Schroders Capital.
Returning backers Arix Bioscience, SV Health Investors, Andera Partners, LSP (Life Sciences Partners) and IP Group also took part, while Merck Group, Novartis and Pfizer were represented by M Ventures, Novartis Venture Fund and Pfizer Ventures respectively. The company said its funding stands at $320m since it was founded in 2016.
Artios is developing cancer treatments that are designed to prevent DNA damage response (DDR) activity, a mechanism that helps tumours mutate and become resistant to drugs.
Niall Martin, chief executive of Artios, said: “Having this calibre of strategic investors supporting our mission to bring next-generation DDR programmes targeting hard to treat cancers to market adds further validation to Artios’ cancer-killing DDR platform.”
M Ventures, Novartis Venture Fund and Pfizer Ventures had already contributed to an $84m series B round for Artios in 2018 alongside AbbVie Ventures, a subsidiary of pharmaceutical group AbbVie. The round was co-led by Andera Partners and LSP and filled out by IP Group, Arix Bioscience and SV Health Investors.
The company closed its series A round at $36m in 2016. It was led by SV Health Investors and also featured AbbVie Ventures, M Ventures, Arix Bioscience, CRT Pioneer Fund and Touchstone Innovations, now part of IP Group.
