Aduro BioTech, Inc., a Berkeley, CA-based clinical-stage biotechnology company, closed a $55m Series C financing.
New investor Johnson & Johnson Development Corporation (JJDC) joined the Morningside group and other new and existing investors in the transaction.
The company, which has raised a total of $84m to date, intends to use the funds to advance its lead program in metastatic pancreatic cancer through its ongoing Phase 2b ECLIPSE clinical trial, to continue clinical development in mesothelioma and high-grade glioma, to expand into additional indications and to advance its small molecule program targeting the immunomodulatory STING receptor.
The financing follows the company’s recent agreement facilitated by the Johnson & Johnson Innovation center in California, which granted Janssen Biotech, Inc. an exclusive, worldwide license to certain product candidates specifically engineered for the treatment of prostate cancer based on Aduro’s novel LADD immunotherapy platform.
Led by Stephen T. Isaacs, chairman, president and chief executive officer, and Greg W. Schafer, Chief Operating Officer, Aduro focuses on immunotherapy for cancer. It has ongoing clinical trials with its LADD platform in pancreatic cancer, mesothelioma and high-grade glioma and development programs in non-small cell lung cancer, ovarian cancer and prostate cancer. The company is also developing clinical candidates using novel small molecules that activate the intracellular STING receptor, a central mediator of the innate immune response.
FinSMEs
12/06/2014