Leucid Bio, a London UK-based biotech company, raised £11.5M in series A funding.
The round was led by Epidarex and new investor Vulpes Investment Management with participation from new investors 2Invest and Future Fund of the British Business Bank and existing investor Sofinnova Partners. In conjunction with the Series A financing, Ian Miscampbell, Managing Partner of Sixth Element Capital LLP, has been appointed Chair of the Board, while Martin Diggle, Portfolio Manager of Vulpes Life Science Fund will join the Board of Directors as Non-Executive Director, and Heikki Lanckriet as Board Observer for 2Invest. Epidarex’s Peter Finan currently sits on the Board as Investment Director, and Graziano Seghezzi, Managing Partner of Sofinnova, and Michael Garrison, Director at King’s College London remain as Observers to the Board.
The company intends to use the funds to initiate a Phase 1 trial of its lead candidate, LEU-011.
Led by Dr John Maher, CSO, and Artin Moussavi, Chief Executive Officer, Leucid Bio provides cell therapies for refractory cancers, especially solid tumours. The company is advancing LEU-011, its lead candidate for the treatment of platinum resistant ovarian cancer. LEU-011 program is a NKG2D CAR T-cell therapy in pre-clinical development for the treatment of solid tumours and haematological malignancies. The NKG2D receptor is an activating immune receptor that triggers cell death upon recognition of human NKG2D ligands expressed on transformed, infected or damaged cells. LEU-011 has potential for the treatment of multiple cancer types as NKG2D ligands are expressed on more than 80% of human tumour cells.
Leucid was founded to translate 20 years of CAR-T research led by Dr John Maher at King’s College London who joined the company from inception as its Chief Scientific Officer. The company has developed a proprietary engine that builds upon Dr Maher’s novel CAR-T model which develops CAR-T molecules designed to be in a more natural biological configuration of cells. The early development work was supported by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Guy’s and St Thomas’ Biomedical Research Centre.
FinSMEs
22/10/2021