NEW YORK – Cardiff Oncology on Thursday received a $15 million equity investment from Pfizer to help advance its PLK1 inhibitor onvansertib.
The investment was made through Pfizer's Breakthrough Growth Initiative, a program that funds innovative science to meet patient needs. Under the agreement, Pfizer purchased 2.4 million shares of Cardiff Oncology's common stock at a price of $6.22 per share. The price per share represents a roughly 19 percent premium to Cardiff's closing price of $5.23 in Wednesday trade on the Nasdaq.
With the funding, Adam Schayowitz, VP and medicine team group lead for breast cancer, colorectal cancer, and melanoma at Pfizer, will join Cardiff's scientific advisory board.
Cardiff will use the funding to advance development of onvansertib in KRAS-mutated metastatic colorectal cancer, metastatic pancreatic cancer, and metastatic castrate-resistant prostate cancer. The company is currently conducting Phase II trials of the drug in those three cancers. The funds will also advance preclinical development of onvansertib in triple-negative breast cancer, small cell lung cancer, chronic myelomonocytic leukemia, medulloblastoma, and ovarian cancer.
Cardiff has also granted Pfizer rights of first access to data from its development programs.
In early data from the metastatic KRAS-mutated colorectal cancer study, onvansertib plus chemotherapy and bevacizumab (Genentech's Avastin) showed early activity with 38 percent of patients achieving partial responses from the treatment.