As Tubulis prepares to unveil the first data on its next-generation antibody drug conjugate (ADC) later this month, the German biotech has secured a massive new financing round to kick its clinical strategy into high gear.
Fierce Biotech’s 2024 Fierce 15 winner Tubulis has closed a $361 million series C funding round led by Venrock Healthcare Capital Partners, with help from new investors Wellington Management and Ascenta Capital. The biotech received additional support from 10 returning venture capital firms, including EQT Life Sciences, Frazier Life Sciences and Deep Track Capital, among others.
The cash will help expand clinical development for Tubulis’ lead ADC asset TUB-040, which targets the antigen NaPi2b and is currently in phase 1/2a testing for platinum-resistant ovarian cancer and advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), the Munich-based company said in an Oct. 15 press release.
With TUB-040 already in clinical testing, Tubulis is “ready to expand into earlier treatment lines,” the company’s CEO and co-founder, Dominik Schumacher, Ph.D., said in a statement. “The new funding empowers us to execute on our vision of creating truly differentiated antibody drug conjugates that are tailored to the biology of solid tumors and can deliver superior therapeutic value to patients.”
Tubulis will further use the proceeds to shore up the rest of its pipeline, including a second ADC candidate which targets the protein 5T4 and is coded TUB-030, plus “several” programs that have yet to enter the clinic, according to the release. The company also aims to expand its bespoke ADC platform in a bid to move into new indications.
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The funding round adds further validation to Tubulis’ differentiated ADC approach on the eve of the company’s first public data showing.
At this year’s meeting of the European Society of Medical Oncology (ESMO)—which runs from Oct. 17 to Oct. 21—Tubulis is slated to present the first clinical data from its NAPISTAR1-01 trial, covering interim results on TUB-040 from the dose-escalation portion of the study’s ovarian cancer cohort.
The company’s Tubutecan platform is designed to combine therapeutic payloads and P5 conjugation technology to reduce the toxicity of its ADCs. The company figures that by halting premature payload loss and preventing aggregation in circulation, it can limit target-independent toxicity without compromising the cancer-stopping power of traditional ADCs.
Tubulis’ approach has already attracted two pharma juggernauts in Bristol Myers Squibb and Gilead Sciences.
BMS was first to join the fold when it handed Tubulis $22.8 million upfront in 2023 to use the German biotech’s platform and search for “a selected number of highly differentiated ADCs to treat solid tumors.” The deal includes more than $1 billion in potential milestones for Tubulis, which announced in May that the first ADC program from the pact had entered clinical development.
Meanwhile, last December Gilead inked a deal worth up to $465 million to collaboratively discover and develop a topoisomerase I inhibitor-based ADC candidate with Tubulis.
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Tubulis’ series C close comes after the company raked in 128 million euros (then worth about $139 million) in a series B2 financing last March. At the time, the company said it would use the funding to gear up for its entry into the clinic. The company also expressed an interest in boosting its U.S. presence, drafting plans to settle near Boston with help from the B2 proceeds.
“That’s an important market, right?” Schumacher previously said during an interview for Fierce Biotech’s 2024 Fierce 15. “We need to build trust with U.S. investors, with clinicians, to really understand the differentiation that we have.”
Tubulis’ Massachusetts office at the Cambridge Innovation Center is now up and running and hosts recently appointed Chief Financial Officer Matthew Norkunas, M.D., and Chief Legal and Operating Officer Halley Gilbert, a company spokesperson confirmed with Fierce Biotech.
