OncoResponse, a Seattle biotech company creating antibody-based treatments for cancer, has raised a $40 million Series B round to advance five new treatments into preclinical and clinical trials.
The company has now raised nearly $70 million since it was launched by The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center and the now-closed Theraclone Sciences in 2015.
The Series B round was led by RiverVest Venture Partners and included participation from Qatar Investment Authority, Redmile Group, Alexandria Venture Investments, ARCH Venture Partners and several other groups.
OncoResponse developed its drug candidates by examining the immune systems of cancer patients who responded unusually well to immunotherapy treatments. These treatments use the immune system to fight cancer and are widely seen as an important next step in advancing cancer treatment across the board.
The company hopes to harness antibodies from those patients’ immune systems to make new immunotherapy treatments for patients whose immune systems do not respond well to current treatments.
“We now have several antibodies from our cancer patient-derived platform that are directed at modulating immunosuppression of the tumor microenvironment,” OncoResponse CEO Clifford Stocks said in a statement. “This new capital will allow us to advance our programs through pre-clinical development and enable us to move our lead programs into clinical studies.”
