University of California Los Angeles’ spin-out ImaginAb has closed its series B with $21m. The round was led by Mérieux Développement, investment arm of French life sciences company Biomérieux, and also included previous investors Novartis Venture Fund, Cycad Group and Nextech Invest. Series A investor Momentum Bioscience did not return.
ImaginAb, which raised $12.5m in its 2012 series A, is planning to use the new cash injection to further its antibody-re-engineering technology by expanding its pipeline and increasing its programmes in prostate, ovarian and pancreatic cancers. The company currently has 30 collaborations with global pharma outfits in cancer and immune, inflammatory and neurodegenerative disease.
The biotech’s technology engineers antibodies into smaller protein fragments that seek out their targets and light up on PET scans. PET scans are 3D images of functional processes in the body, and combined with ImaginAb’s technology they are helping physicians visualise disease on a molecular level. The company expects that, eventually, this combination of technologies can be used to better understand the immune system and the body’s response to diseases.
Valérie Calenda, partner at Mérieux, said: “ImaginAb’s prostate cancer imaging programme has demonstrated impressive clinical data. The sensitivity and specificity of an antibody fragment approach also has the potential to change the way we understand occult disease, for example the non-metastatic, or M0, patient population in castrate-resistant prostate cancer.”
