NEW YORK – Acrivon Therapeutics on Thursday said it raised $100 million in an oversubscribed Series B funding round led by Wellington Management and Surveyor Capital.
Other investors in the round included RA Capital Management and Perceptive Advisors, as well as new investors in the firm Sands Capital, HBM Healthcare Investments, Marshall Wace, HealthCor Management, BB Pureos Bioventures, and Acorn Bioventures. Existing investors Alexandria Venture Investments and Chione also participated in the financing. In announcing the funding, the company also said that Derek DiRocco, partner at RA Capital Management, will join its board of directors.
The raised funds will help Acrivon advance its lead candidate ACR-368, a CHK1/2 inhibitor it licensed from Eli Lilly earlier this year and is studying in patients with platinum-resistant ovarian cancer, anal cancer, and other solid tumors.
The company will also put the funds toward developing companion diagnostics that can select patients for drug trials using its Predictive Precision Proteomics (AP3) platform, which the company claims can identify best responders better than traditional genomics analyses can. The AP3 platform analyzes protein biomarkers and other biological mechanisms that drive cancer independent of target gene alterations and matches them with a drug's mechanism of action.
"This allows us to not only predict individual patient response, but also identify new indications and rational drug combinations, as well as hurdles that block patient responses, such as resistance mechanisms," Acrivon CEO Peter Blume-Jensen said in a statement. "The initial application of our technology is for the development of ACR-368 and two other undisclosed pipeline programs targeting solid tumors."
Acrivon, based in Watertown, Massachusetts, has two therapeutic candidates in preclinical development that target DNA damage response and cell cycle regulation. The company will also use the funding to expand its product pipeline.