Nereus Pharmaceuticals, a US-based lung cancer drug company backed by two strategic investors, has raised $20m from eight venture firms a decade after its first round.
Three of the original venture capital investors, Alta Partners, Forward Ventures and Gimv, from the first $8.6m raised in April 2000 have returned in Nereus’ series E round.
HBM BioVentures, a venture capital firm set up by Henri Miller, the former chief financial officer of Roche, led the round alongside two corporate venturing divisions. The two strategic investors that invested again were Switzerland-based pharmaceuticals group Roche’s corporate venturing unit, Roche Venture Fund, and Astellas Venture Management, part of Japan-based drugs company Astellas.
The final members of the $20m syndicate were private equity firms Advent International and Pacific Venture Group.
Nereus has raised $145.6m in the past decade, including $87.6m in its extended series D round where Astellas and Roche joined the consortium of investors. Its name is taken from Greek mythology where Nereus was the eldest son of Pontus (the sea) and Gaia (the earth) as the company is developing drugs from marine sources.
However, the length of investment has seen a number of venture investors no longer publicly subscribe to the current $20m round, including: Novartis and Sanofi-aventis’ corporate venturing vehicles, Bioventure Fund and Genavent Partners respectively; and VCs BankInvest Biomedical Venture, Boston Life Science Venture Corporation, Taiwan Global BioFund, Eminent Venture Capital, FirstBio, InterWest Partners, Red Abbey Venture Partners, China Development Industrial Bank of Taipei, Blue Dot Capital, Lotus Biosciences Ventures and Swiss 1st.