US-based small molecule drug developer Nimbus Therapeutics completed a $105m funding round yesterday backed by conglomerate Access Industries’ life sciences investment subsidiary, Access Biotechnology.
Investment partnership BVF Partners led the round, which included RA Capital Management, Atlas Venture, Commodore Capital, Logos Capital, Surveyor Capital and an unnamed alternative asset manager. It increased the company’s total funding to more than $300m.
Nimbus is developing a range of small molecule compounds that have demonstrated the potential to treat prevalent health conditions such as cancer as well as autoimmune and inflammatory diseases.
The funding will go to phase 2 clinical studies for the company’s allosteric tyrosine kinase 2 inhibitor in 2021 and 2022. The cash will also support a first-in-human study for a haematopoietic progenitor kinase 1 inhibitor candidate in cancer patients with solid tumours and accelerate the development of its other preclinical programmes.
Nimbus received $3.5m in a 2010 seed round reportedly featuring Bill Gates, before picking up $24m in a 2011 series A round co-led by SR One and Lilly Ventures, on behalf of pharmaceutical firms GlaxoSmithKline and Eli Lilly respectively. Atlas Venture and Bill Gates also invested in the series A round.
Pfizer Venture Investments, the corporate venturing subsidiary of pharmaceutical firm Pfizer, co-led a $43m series B for the company with Lightstone Ventures in 2014, participating alongside all the series A investors.
In 2018, Nimbus received $65m in funding from life sciences software producer Schrödinger, Pfizer Venture Investments, SR One, Lilly Ventures, Atlas Venture, Lightstone Ventures and Bill Gates, before RA Capital Management and BVF Partners supplied another $60m for the company in October 2020.