Cancer immunotherapy company EpicentRx raises $35m in Series D round

EpicentRx, a cancer immunotherapy company based in California, has secured $35 million of capital through a Series D financing round to support the development of small molecule immunotherapy and its oncolytic viral platform.

The oncology company used the services of Biotech Alliances International, a Silicon Valley based life-science focused investment bank to get the funding. The Series D financing, which was secured from an undisclosed European source, takes the total capital raised by the US cancer immunotherapy company to nearly $77 million.

EpicentRx said that the Series D funding will be split into three tranches and will be used for advancing the late-stage clinical development of RRx-001, its lead anticancer agent, and also on its transgene-enhanced oncolytic adenoviral platform technology.

Cancer immunotherapy company EpicentRx raises $35m in Series D round. Image courtesy of renjith krishnan at FreeDigitalPhotos.net.

Corey A. Carter – President & CEO of EpicentRx said: “We are extremely grateful to Biotech Alliances for supported this financing round, which enables us to advance clinical development of our lead cancer programs, including the Phase 3 REPLATINUM trial which recently began enrolling patients.

“This financing validates the potential and uniqueness of our two complementary anticancer platforms, which reprogram both arms of the immune system, innate and adaptive, to seek out and destroy cancer cells. As a company led by practicing oncologists, it also reinforces our mission to provide hope and additional options to cancer patients by developing new treatments with minimal toxicity.”

RRx-001 is a small molecule immunotherapy which has been designed to target the CD47 – SIRPα axis. The investigational anticancer agent is currently being studied in combination with platinum doublet chemotherapy in a phase 3 clinical trial called REPLATINUM trial for the treatment of third-line and beyond small cell lung cancer.

Dr. Franck Brinkhaus – CEO of Biotech Alliances said: “It was a great pleasure working with the EpicentRx team on this Series D financing which will allow the company to advance their clinical-stage portfolio of novel immunotherapies. Biotech Alliances International was pleased to have exclusively attracted European private financing sources for this $35 million deal.”

EpicentRx is also said to be developing a diverse range of oncolytic adenoviruses that are genetically modified to replicate selectively in cancer cells. Tony Reid – EpicentRx Chief Scientific Officer and Professor of Medicine at the University of California San Diego Moores Cancer Center, discovered and developed the agents.

Apart from oncolysis, the adenoviruses have additional and complementary mechanisms of action by  means of therapeutic “arming” with various transgenes, that are selectively expressed in cancer cells during replication, said EpicentRx. The cancer immunotherapy company said that it has identified a lead candidate in TGF-beta trap, which is currently being prepared for a phase 1 clinical trial.