Black Diamond Therapeutics, Inc., a Cambridge, Mass.-based precision oncology medicine company pioneering the discovery and development of small molecule, tumor-agnostic therapies, completed a Series C financing of $85m.
The round was led by Boxer Capital of the Tavistock Group, with participation from new investors Wellington Management Company, BVF Partners L.P., Deerfield Management, funds managed by Janus Henderson Investors, Casdin Capital, and Logos Capital, which joined current investors Versant Ventures, New Enterprise Associates, RA Capital Management, Nextech Invest, Invus, Perceptive Advisors, City Hill Ventures, and Roche Venture Fund.
The company, which initially operated in stealth mode from New York and from Versant’s Basel-based Ridgeline Discovery Engine and has raised $194 million since its founding, intends to use the capital to:
– advance the development of its lead product candidates targeting oncogenic driver mutations of the ErbB kinases in epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) and human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2),
– start a combined Phase 1/2 clinical trial of its most advanced product candidate, BDTX-189, in the first half of 2020,
– continue to expand its earlier stage research programs and proprietary Mutation-Allostery-Pharmacology (MAP) platform to identify and target oncogenic mutations.
Founded by David M. Epstein, Ph.D. and Elizabeth Buck, Ph.D., Black Diamond Therapeutics is a precision oncology medicine company pioneering the discovery of small molecule, tumor-agnostic therapies. Its proprietary technology platform, Mutation-Allostery-Pharmacology, or MAP, platform, is designed to allow Black Diamond to analyze population-level genetic sequencing data to identify oncogenic mutations that promote cancer across tumor types, group these mutations into families, and develop a single small molecule therapy in a tumor-agnostic manner that targets a specific family of mutations.
The MAP platform has generated a pipeline of orally available, potent, and selective small molecule kinase inhibitors that target a range of driver mutations in cancer. Its first two disclosed programs are targeting groups of EGFR and HER2 allosteric mutants.
In addition, the company announced the appointment of Samarth (Sam) Kulkarni, Ph.D., to its Board of Directors. An industry leader with expertise in strategy and operations in biotech and a wide range of pioneering therapeutic technologies, he currently serves as CEO of CRISPR Therapeutics AG.
FinSMEs
05/12/2019