NGM Biopharmaceuticals, a US-based biotechnology company backed by pharmaceutical firm Merck, has closed a $57.5m series D round.
The syndicate of new and existing investors that provided the cash includes venture capital firms The Column Group, Prospect Ventures and Topspin Partners, and Tichenor Ventures, the investment vehicle for McHenry T. Tichenor, Jr.
The funding was secured a month after Merck paid $106m for a 15% stake in NGM as part of a research and development deal that also included a $94m upfront payment and up to $250m in additional financing over a five-year period.
Founded in 2008, NGM is working on therapeutics based on biology. The series D cash will fund the advancement of its lead compound through clinical trials for bile acid‐related diseases and nonalcoholic steatohepatitis and the development of its drug discovery engine.
Prior to the agreement with Merck, NGM had raised about $130m from Takeda Ventures, the corporate venturing arm of pharmaceutical company Takeda, private equity firm Rho Ventures, The Column Group, Prospect and Tichenor.
William Rieflin, chief executive of NGM, said: “This financing – coupled with our recently announced Merck collaboration – provides us with the flexibility to expand our team and ambitiously pursue exciting science, including the development of NGM282, our non‐tumorigenic FGF19 protein variant.”