Oric Pharmaceuticals Raises $53M in Series B Financing

oricOric Pharmaceuticals, a South San Francisco, Calif.-based cancer therapy company, raised $53m in Series B financing.

Backers included The Column Group, Topspin Partners, OrbiMed Advisors, EcoR1 Capital, Foresite Capital and Kravis Investment Partners.

The company intends to use the funds to support advancement of its first drug candidate into initial clinical trials and to further develop its pipeline.

Founded by Charles Sawyers, M.D., and Scott Lowe, Ph.D., who are on the faculty at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, and led by Richard Heyman, Ph.D., interim chief executive officer and board member of ORIC Pharmaceuticals, as well as Valeria Fantin, Ph.D., chief scientific officer (CSO), Oric focuses on the discovery and development of small-molecule drugs that target treatment-resistant cancers. The company is now working to gain new clinical understanding about tumor resistance mechanisms at the molecular level, which it will replicate using unique laboratory-based models in order to identify actionable drug targets with a clear development pathway. Oric is initially focusing on drugs targeting resistance mechanisms associated with androgen receptor (AR) therapies in advanced (i.e., castration-resistant) prostate cancer.

FinSMEs

02/12/2015

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