SAN FRANCISCO--- Raven biotechnologies inc. Raises $48.3 Million in Series D Financing
Raven biotechnologies, inc., a privately held biotechnology company focused on the development of monoclonal antibody therapeutics for treating cancer, announced today it has raised $48.3 million through a Series D financing led by new investor Vulcan Capital. Also participating in this financing round were new investors Biogen Idec New Ventures, CIDC Consultants Inc., and Mitsubishi UFJ Capital Co., Ltd, as well as existing investors Bear Stearns Health Innoventures, L.P. (BSHI), Pequot Ventures, Singapore's BioMedical Sciences Investment Fund Pte Ltd, Integra Ventures, U.S. Venture Partners (USVP), CMEA Ventures, Hambrecht & Quist Capital Management, LLC, Milepost Ventures, and Cogene Ventures. The company also announced that Michael Kranda, Managing Director at Vulcan Capital, has joined Raven's board of directors. Prior to Vulcan, Mr. Kranda was COO at Immunex (now Amgen) Corporation.
"This financing demonstrates our investors' confidence in our approach to developing novel antibody therapeutics for life-threatening conditions," said William Rohn, CEO and Vice Chairman of Raven. "We are pleased with the addition of a quality group of new investors as well as the continued support of our existing investors. With these proceeds we will be able to aggressively move forward the clinical development program for RAV12 for gastrointestinal cancers as well as conduct pre-clinical work for a second product candidate. We have retained worldwide rights to RAV12 and expect to pursue strategic partnerships centered around our discovery platform on both a regional and global basis in the near future."
Raven will use the funding for the ongoing RAV12 clinical development program, pre-clinical development of its second product, and general corporate purposes.
"We believe RAV12 has the potential to be a promising new therapy for GI cancers that affect millions of patients," said Michael Kranda, Managing Director at Vulcan Capital and new board member of Raven. "We are confident that Raven's approach will lead to additional new therapeutics for other cancers as well."
About RAV12
RAV12, Raven's lead product candidate in Phase 1 clinical trials, is an antibody that targets a novel antigen that is present on a number of human carcinomas, especially adenocarcinomas. Preclinical studies have reported that RAV12 is directly cytotoxic against human colon cancer cell lines in vitro via the induction of oncotic cell death. RAV12 is highly efficacious in colon, gastric and pancreatic tumor xenograft models in vivo.
About GI Cancers
Adenocarcinomas are malignant tumors of the epithelial cells of a gland that typically metastasize by way of the lymphatic system. Greater than 90 percent of colon, stomach, and pancreatic patient tumor samples express the RAV12 target, as do a lower percentage of endometrial, ovarian, liver, lung, prostate and breast tumors.
About Raven
Raven biotechnologies, inc.(www.ravenbio.com) is a privately held biotechnology company focused on the development of monoclonal antibody therapeutics for treating cancer. Raven's lead product candidate, RAV12, targets adenocarcinomas and is in clinical development for the treatment of gastrointestinal and other cancers. Raven's discovery process simultaneously identifies cell-surface drug targets and the antibody therapeutics to regulate them. Our focus on biological function allows us to rapidly identify novel target antigens and therapeutic candidates in their native configuration in the intact cell membrane. Our integrated approach is based on proprietary methods for optimizing the production of Mabs targeting cell-surface proteins, including the use of human tissue-specific progenitor and tumor stem cell lines developed at Raven. We have identified multiple candidate therapeutic Mabs for many cancer indications including lung, colon, pancreatic, prostate, breast, brain, and ovarian cancer.