BMS sweeps up Forbius

Pharmaceutical firm Bristol Myers Squibb (BMS) has paid an undisclosed sum to acquire Forbius, a US-based cancer and fibrosis drug developer backed by multi-university commercialisation firm Toronto Innovation Acceleration Partners (TIAP).
The deal will close in the fourth quarter of 2020 once customary closing conditions have been met. The deal consists of an upfront and milestone-dependent payments.
Forbius has assembled a clinical and preclinical-stage portfolio of drug candidates for cancer and fibrosis – a disease in which connective tissue grown in place of normal organ tissue leads to permanent scarring.
Forbius’s approach focuses on inhibiting two protein variants – TGF-beta 1 and 3 – believed to invigorate the patient’s immune response while also controlling environmental factors permissive of tumour growth.
The company’s most advanced candidate, Avid200, has completed phase 1a clinical trials as a potential cancer immunotherapy and fibrosis drug, although BMS plans to initially target the former.
Forbius emerged in 2011 as a spinout of pharmaceutical company YM BioSciences to exploit research jointly conducted with the National Research Council of Canada. It was originally known as AvidBiologics before a first rebrand to Formation Biologics.
The company raised an undisclosed series A amount from unnamed investors in 2012. TIAP, then known as Mars Innovation, said this week that it invested in either 2011 or 2012, without providing further details.
It returned to back a round of undisclosed size led by Lumira Capital in 2014, participating through its Investment Accelerator Fund, alongside Rosseau Asset Management and undisclosed existing investors.
Forbius’s most recent funding came in 2017, when it closed a series B round of undisclosed size led by HBM Healthcare Investments.