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A Yale cancer researcher’s start-up biopharmaceutical company’s got a “record-setting” jump-start in the form of $67 million in new investment.
The money will enable the professor, Lieping Chen (pictured), to develop new cancer drugs through his start-up, NextCure Inc.
The investment comes from Canaan Partners, Lilly Asia Ventures, OrbiMed Advisors, Pfizer Inc., Sofinnova Venutres, and Alexandria Venture Investments. The investors’ money wins them “an exclusive license for patented technologies, access to Chen’s expertise and payments to support research,” according to release issued Wednesday by Yale’s Office of Cooperative Research (OCR), which the university established in 1982 to help turn its professors’ research into successful private companies.
Chen, a researcher and professor of immunobiology, co-directs Yale Cancer Center’s Immunology Program. The hope is that NextCure will develop new immunotherapy drugs to fight cancer.
The OCR release called the $67 million infusion “one of the largest Series A financing rounds for a biotech startup and the largest such deal in Yale’s history. … The deal is unique not only for the size of the investment but for its innovative approach: combining patented technologies with the unique insights of the inventor into tumor microenvironments,” the OCR release said.
“Immuno-oncology drugs are making a big impact on the survival of many cancer patients,” the release quotes Dr. Chen saying. “Our research is targeted to finding the next generation of treatments for those patients and tumor types which do not adequately respond to available therapy.”’
Where will he be able to find that kind of office space around here?