Pharmaceutical company Pharmstandard International led a $20m series C round for US-based cancer care technology developer Avelas Biosciences today.
The round also included Alexandria Venture Investments, the corporate venturing vehicle for life sciences real estate firm Alexandria, and WuXi Healthcare Ventures, the strategic investment arm of pharmaceutical company WuXi PharmaTech, as well as Avalon Ventures, Bregua Corporation and Ervington Investments.
Avelas is working on technology that uses cancer’s pathological biochemistry to send what it calls therapeutic or imaging cargo to the site of the disease.
The series C funding will support the progress of the company’s lead candidate, a cancer-illuminating probe called AVB-620 that lights up with it encounters cancer tissue in order to aid surgeons in tumour removals. AVB-620 is currently in a phase 1b trial for breast cancer.
Avelas has now raised about $35m in total. It closed a $7.4m series B round in 2014 that included WuXi PharmaTech, which took part through its WuXi PharmaTech Investments unit, as well as Avalon Ventures, Torrey Pines Investment and unnamed additional investors.
Avalon had already provided $7.7m in series A funding for Avelas in 2012.
Carmine N. Stengone, president and chief executive of Avelas Biosciences, said: “I am delighted to have some of the world’s most prominent healthcare investors participate in our series C financing, led by Pharmstandard.
“Strengthened by this fundraising, I believe Avelas is well-positioned to further the development of AVB-620 and advance new therapeutic candidates – two exciting product opportunities that could make meaningful contributions to cancer diagnosis and treatment.”
Andrei Petrov, CEO and managing partner of venture capital management firm Inbio Ventures, which represents Pharmstandard, has joined Avelas Biosciences’ board of directors in conjunction with the round.