US-based pharmaceutical company Mersana Therapeutics has closed a $33m series C round that featured its Japan-headquartered peer and strategic partner Takeda Pharmaceutical.
The round was led by investment firm Wellington Management and included Cormorant Asset Management, Arrowpoint Partners, New Enterprise Associates (NEA) and Rock Springs Capital.
Takeda’s investment follows a strategic partnership between the two companies signed in February 2016 that could potentially worth more than $800m. Takeda committed to supplying a total of $20m to future funding rounds, though it has not emerged how much the firm contributed to the series C round.
Mersana is working on a pipeline of antibody drug conjugates based on its Fleximer platform. Its two lead drug candidates target a range of unmet clinical needs in a range of cancer types.
The company will use the funding to further develop its pipeline and expand its platform. Mersana expects to file an investigational new drug application with the US Food and Drug Administration for one candidate in mid-2016 and to begin a phase 1 clinical trial for a second program shortly after.
Mersana had previously raised approximately $108m in equity funding and debt financing, securing $35m in a March 2015 series B-1 round that included pharmaceutical firm Pfizer’s corporate venturing subsidiary, Pfizer Venture Investments.
The round was led by NEA and featured F-Prime Capital Partners (then called Fidelity Biosciences), Rock Springs and angel investor Elliott Sigal.
Pfizer had also taken part in Mersana’s $27m series A-1 round in 2012, which was led by NEA and backed by Fidelity Biosciences, ProQuest Investments, Harris and Harris Group and Rho Ventures. Mersana’s other investors include Lansing Brown Investments, PureTech Ventures and Cape Family Fund.