Cerulean Pharma, Inc., a Cambridge, Massachusetts-based designer and developer of nanopharmaceuticals, has closed a $24m Series C financing. The round was led by Lilly Ventures, with participation from existing investors Polaris Venture Partners, Venrock, Lux Capital, and Bessemer Venture Partners.
In conjunction with the funding, Steve Hall, Ph.D., a Venture Partner at Lilly Ventures, has joined the company’s board of directors.
Cerulean specializes in applying its proprietary nanopharmaceutical platform technologies to advance a new class of therapeutic agents, with an initial focus in oncology.
The company’s nanopharmaceuticals are drug‐containing nanoparticles designed and optimized to enhance efficacy and tolerability of therapeutic agents, ranging from small molecules to therapeutic peptides and RNAi molecules.
The company’s nanopharmaceuticals are drug‐containing nanoparticles designed and optimized to enhance efficacy and tolerability of therapeutic agents, ranging from small molecules to therapeutic peptides and RNAi molecules.
Cerulean intends to use the new capital to advance CRLX101, its nanopharmaceutical clinical development candidate, into a randomized Phase 2 trial in non-small cell lung cancer with overall survival as an endpoint; its docetaxel nanopharmaceutical candidate, CRLX288, into clinical trials; and pursue other platform expansion opportunities, including the application of its platform technology to the delivery of RNA based therapeutics.
The company will also receive over $733,000 in Therapeutic Discovery Tax Credit Grants for three of its therapeutic discovery projects.
FinSMEs
15/11/2010