Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, which spun out Amcure in 2012, has participated in a round led by LBBW Venture Capital.
Germany-based cancer therapeutics developer Amcure, a spinout of Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), closed a €6m ($6.4m) series B round yesterday featuring KIT.
LBBW Venture Capital, the investment arm of German state-backed financial services firm Landesbank Baden-Württemberg (LBBW), led the round.
Other government-backed investors also took part, including development bank KfW and investment firms MBG Baden-Württemberg and S-Kap Unternehmensbeteiligungs, a unit of savings bank Pforzheim.
Founded in 2012, Amcure develops peptide-based compounds to treat cancer, including lead candidate AMC303, which was developed to treat advanced and solid metastasising tumours by targeting a key extracellular molecule. The capital will be used to speed up the clinical development of AMC303.
Bruno Osterwalder, a hematologist and oncologist with decades of industry experience, has joined Amcure’s advisory board. He has spent 26 years working in drug development and strategic portfolio management at cancer drugs and diagnostics company F Hoffmann-La Roche and biopharmaceutical firm Merck Serono.
Amcure collected €5m in a series A round in 2014 that was also led by LBBW and featured KfW, MBG, S-Kap and BioM, a nonprofit seed investor and consultancy funded by the Bavarian State Ministry of Economic Affairs.
Harald Poth, senior investment manager at LBBW, said: “Amcure has made significant progress towards bringing a new and potentially groundbreaking treatment option to patients with cancer metastasis, therefore we are enthusiastic about renewing and expanding our investment into the firm.
“We are equally pleased with [Osterwalder]’s decision to join the advisory board of Amcure. His expertise in oncology drug development from the lab all the way to pivotal trials will be extremely valuable as Amcure enters the next stage of corporate development.”
