UK-based oncology developer Biosceptre raised £8m ($10.7m) in a series A round on Thursday led by Tuspark Science and Technology Service, a venture capital subsidiary of Tsinghua University.
Tuspark took part through its Bluesky Partnership II fund, however further details were not disclosed. Biosceptre expects to close the round on December 21.
Biosceptre is working on therapies that target nfP2X7, a mutated ion channel it claims is present on diseased cells in more than 20 forms of cancer.
The cash will be used for clinical trials, including a phase 1 program in Australia for the Bil06v vaccine in 2018. Biosceptre’s lead asset, the monoclonal binding drug Bil03s, is currently being tweaked for further improvement.
Biosceptre hopes to have completed an acquisition or flotation as early as 2019. It obtained angel rounds of $1m in June 2017 and $5m in 2014, according to deals database Pitchbook, though further details could not be ascertained.
Gavin Currie, chief executive of Biosceptre, said: “The work we have done to date on exploitation of nfP2X7 as a therapeutic target has shown incredible promise, and we are now very eager to generate in-human formal clinical trial results that bear out that promise.”
