Apogen Biotechnologies, a US-based oncological therapy spinout of University of Minnesota, boosted its series A round to $11m yesterday with a $4m extension from investors including pharmaceutical firm Merck Group.
Merck contributed to the capital through its corporate venturing subsidiary M Ventures, and was joined by unnamed, existing investors.
Apogen previously raised an initial $7m tranche in 2016 from WRF Capital, the investment arm of commercialisation firm Washington Research Foundation, Arch Venture Partners and Accelerator Life Science Partners.
AbbVie Ventures and Johnson & Johnson Innovation – JJDC, respective corporate venturing units for drug developers AbbVie and Johnson & Johnson, also backed the first close, as did pharmaceutical firms Eli Lilly and Wuxi AppTec’s corporate venture fund.
Alexandria Venture Investments, a subsidiary of real estate developer Alexandria Real Estate Equities, and Watson Fund also took part.
Founded in 2014, Apogen is working on medications that impede drug resistance in cancerous cells by targeting an enzyme linked to genetic mutations in cancer.
The spinout was co-founded by Daniel Harki, associate professor of medicinal chemistry, and Reuben Harris, associate director of the Institute for Molecular Virology.
They were joined by co-founder John Santini, who initially served as president and chief executive before becoming president and CEO of tumour-targeted imaging probe developer Vergent Bioscience in 2016. Santini continues to serve on Apogen’s board of directors.
The additional series A funding will drive recruitment as Apogen prepares to open a laboratory in Seattle. Keno Gutierrez, an investment director at M Ventures, has joined the board of directors.
Thong Le, CEO of both Accelerator Life Science and Apogen Biotechnologies, said: “M Ventures has a demonstrated track record of success in identifying and supporting transformative healthcare technologies.
“The fund’s participation in this expanded series A financing validates Apogen’s leadership in innovating approaches to address the challenges of therapeutic drug resistance.
“We are pleased to welcome Keno to ApoGen’s board of directors and believe that his expertise in drug development and entrepreneurship will be an important asset to the company as it works to realize the value of its technology.”