A cross-border Life Sciences team advised Pheon Therapeutics on the completion of its $120 million Series B financing to fund the development of its pipeline of differentiated Antibody-Drug Conjugates (ADC). The financing was led by TCGX with participation from other new investors BVF Partners, Lightspeed and Perceptive Advisors, alongside existing investors Atlas Venture, Brandon Capital, Forbion, and Research Corporation Technologies.
The new financing will be used to further advance Pheon's differentiated ADC pipeline through clinical proof of concept. The first three assets are aimed at an undisclosed novel target which is highly overexpressed in a wide range of solid tumors. The first program has demonstrated an unprecedented preclinical therapeutic index while utilizing a DAR8 Topoisomerase-1 inhibitor linker-payload, whereas the next two ADCs utilize other linker-payload technologies to mine the broad potential of this target. The company expects to start its first Phase 1 clinical trial in 2024 and rapidly advance towards dose expansion cohorts. The capital will also enable the expansion of Pheon's suite of in-house technology platforms to generate optimized ADC constructs.
Pheon Therapeutics is an Antibody Drug Conjugate specialist developing a pipeline of ADCs, based on novel targets and novel linker payloads, to treat solid tumors. Pheon's lead program is a first-in-class ADC against a novel target that is highly overexpressed in solid tumors across a broad range of hard-to-treat cancer types.
The Goodwin team was led by Samuel Beavers, Amine Assouad, David Mardle, Kingsley Taft, Tris Cox and Hannah Frost.
For additional details on the financing round, please read the press release and coverage in Endpoints and BioPharma Dive.