NEW YORK – Tubulis on Thursday closed an upsized Series B2 funding round, raising €128 million ($138.8 million) to advance its antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) pipeline.
The financing was co-led by EQT Life Sciences and Nextech Invest, on behalf of one or more funds managed by it, with participation from new investors Frazier Life Sciences and Deep Track Capital as well as existing investors Andera Partners, BioMedPartners, Fund+, Bayern Kapital (with ScaleUp-Fonds Bayern), Evotec, Coparion, Seventure Partners, Occident, and High-Tech Gründerfonds. Concurrent with the financing, Christoph Broja, managing director at EQT Life Sciences, and Kanishka Pothula, managing partner at Nextech Invest, will join Tubulis' supervisory board.
Tubulis, based in Munich, Germany, will use the proceeds to conduct clinical proof-of-concept studies for its two lead preclinical candidates, TUB-040 and TUB-030, and advance its other programs. The funds will also be used to fund expansion of Tubulis' ADC drug discovery and development platforms and to establish a US-based subsidiary.
TUB-040 targets tumor-antigen Napi2b, which occurs in ovarian and lung cancers, and TUB-030 targets 5T4, an antigen often overexpressed in solid tumors. The company said in an email that it plans to conduct biomarker analysis within these clinical studies and aims to evaluate whether the candidates are effective in tumors with low target expression. The firm said it expects to begin its first Phase I/IIa trial for these candidates this year. Tubulis has two other undisclosed ADC candidates in preclinical development for solid cancers.
"Recent developments in oncology underscore the significant potential of ADCs for the treatment of solid tumors," Pothula said in a statement. "We are convinced that Tubulis will be at the forefront of this next wave of ADC therapeutics. The team continuously pushes the boundaries of ADC design and has developed an impressive set of platform technologies that give the company the full flexibility to tailor each component of the ADC to a specific indication."