Flexus Biosciences Raises $38M in Series B Funding

Flexus Biosciences, a San Carlos, CA-based cancer Immunotherapy company focused on agents for the reversal of Tumor Immunosuppression (ARTIS), raised $38m in Series B funding.

Backers included Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, The Column Group and Celgene. In conjunction with the funding, David Goeddel, Ph.D., Managing Partner at TCG, joined the company’s Board of Directors.

The company intends to use the funds to advance its pipeline of immunotherapies and to select a clinical candidate from its IDO-1 inhibitor program in early 2015.

Led by Terry Rosen, Ph.D., CEO, Juan Jaen, Ph.D., President and Head of R&D, Yujiro Hata, M.B.A., Chief Operating Officer, Jordan Fridman, Ph.D., Chief Scientific Officer, Jay Powers, Ph.D., Vice President, Drug Discovery, and Steve Young, Ph.D., Vice President, Technology, Flexus Biosciences focuses on the discovery and development of small-molecule cancer immunotherapies targeting regulatory T cells, which are key mediators in the creation of an immunosuppressed microenvironment that enables tumors to escape attack by the host immune system.

Flexus, which was incubated by KPCB and closed its Series A financing in October of 2013, also appointed Alexander Rudensky, Ph.D. (Chairman of the Immunology Program and Director of the Ludwig Center at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center) as Chairman of its Clinical and Scientific Advisory Board (CSAB).

FinSMEs

19/12/2014

 

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