ImaginAb, Inc., a Los Angeles, CA-based clinical-stage company developing in vivo imaging agents for Positron Emission Tomography (PET) based on antibody fragment technology, completed a $12.5m Series A financing.
The round was led by Novartis Venture Funds, with participation from Merieux Developpement, Nextech Invest, Cycad Group and existing seed investor Momentum Biosciences. Novartis Venture Funds and Merieux Developpement will both appoint Directors as representatives of the Series A investors.
Commenting on the funding, CEO Christian Behrenbruch, Ph.D., said: “This is an important growth financing event for ImaginAb because it augments financial resources from our rapidly expanding pharma companion diagnostics program and strategic NCI funding, to enable us to accelerate the clinical development of our cancer and immunology imaging programs”.
Founded in 2007 by Drs. Robert Reiter, Anna Wu and Behrenbruch, ImaginAb has developed technology that enables antibodies to be re-engineered into smaller proteins (fragments) with fast kinetics suitable for diagnostic imaging, while maintaining target biospecificity. The company has over a dozen development programs with global biopharma companies to develop companion diagnostic imaging agents to therapeutic antibody drugs (in Phase I to BLA), as well as an internal pipeline of proprietary imaging agents for unmet clinical needs – particularly for staging metastatic prostate and pancreatic cancer.
FinSMEs
27/03/2012