NEW YORK – Alpha-9 Oncology on Wednesday said it has raised $175 million in an oversubscribed Series C funding round, which it will use to advance its pipeline of targeted radiopharmaceuticals for cancer.
The financing was led by Lightspeed Venture Partners and Ascenta Capital and included participation from new and existing investors including General Catalyst, a16z Bio + Health, RA Capital Management, Janus Henderson Investors, Delos Capital, Digitalis Ventures, Lumira Ventures, a healthcare fund managed by Abrdn, Frazier Life Sciences, Longitude Capital, Nextech Invest, BVF Partners, and Samsara BioCapital.
Concurrent with the funding, Shelley Chu, head of Lightspeed Venture Partners' healthcare team, and Evan Rachlin, cofounder and managing partner of Ascenta Capital, will join Alpha-9's board of directors.
Boston-based Alpha-9 will use the funds to support human studies for its clinical-stage radiopharmaceutical assets and to ready discovery-stage assets for the clinic. The firm will also use the funds to expand its R&D capabilities and improve its manufacturing processes.
Alpha-9 is developing imaging-guided radiopharmaceutical programs. Earlier this year, the firm began a Phase I study in Australia evaluating 68Ga-A9-3202, an imaging agent that the company is developing for identifying patients with melanocortin 1 receptor (MC1R)-positive, locally advanced or metastatic melanoma. In the trial, researchers are evaluating how well melanoma patients' tumors take up the imaging agent, which Alpha-9 hopes to use to identify patients eligible to receive a radiotherapeutic agent targeting MC1R.
The company was founded in 2019 by scientists at BC Cancer and the University of British Columbia. Since its launch, Alpha-9 has raised $261 million across three financing rounds. Last year, the firm completed building its research facilities in Vancouver to help accelerate drug discovery and development efforts.