Duke University spinout Cereius has signed up BioInnovation Capital to its series A round as it looks to commercialise a radiotherapeutic approach for brain tumours.
Cereius, a US-based brain tumour treatment spinout from Duke University, closed a $6.5m series A round on Wednesday led by venturing firm BioInnovation Capital with contributions from unnamed private investors.
The spinout has also obtained a $250,000 loan from state-backed research agency North Carolina Biotechnology Center.
Founded in 2017, Cereius is developing a radiotherapeutic approach for solid metastasis tumours in the brain. The technique bypasses the blood-brain barrier, a semi-permeable membrane that separates blood in the brain from fluids elsewhere in the body.
Cereius’s design uses molecular precision to avoid toxicity to benign tissues experienced with traditional radiation-based cancer treatments such as chemotherapy. In addition to therapeutics, Cereius also expects to commercialise a radiologic diagnostics system.
The spinout’s founding intellectual property includes a radiolabelling system that improves the absorption of radionuclides around the tumour site by up to 5 times compared to conventional methods.
Cereius has opened talks with partners who could use the technique to complement their own oncological treatments.
Eric Linsley and Susie Harbouth, general partners at BioInnovation Capital, will join the board of directors together with William Hawkins, chairman of fellow biotech developers Immucor and BioVentus.
Cereius builds on research by Michael Zalutsky, professor of radiology, radiation oncology and biomedical engineering at Duke University’s biomedical engineering department, and Kimberly Blackwell, vice-president of early-phase development and immuno-oncology at Lilly Oncology, drug developer Eli Lilly’s cancer treatment arm.
Blackwell also holds appointments in Duke’s department of medicine as an assistant professor in radiation oncology, and as an adjunct professor in medicine.
