• New investors include Qatar Investment Authority and Redmile Group
• Funds will be used to advance 5 drug candidates

OncoResponse announced on 9/11/18 the completion of a $40 million series B equity financing. Participants in the round, which was led by RiverVest Venture Partners, included new investors Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) and Redmile Group, and existing investors Alexandria Venture Investments, ARCH Venture Partners, HT Family Office, Canaan Partners, Helsinn Investment Fund and William Marsh Rice University. The proceeds will be used to advance the company’s five drug candidates into preclinical and clinical development. All drug candidates were derived from OncoResponse’s discovery platform, which mines the immune systems of patients who have responded exceptionally well to cancer immunotherapies.

“We are very pleased to add RiverVest, QIA and Redmile to our already strong syndicate of investors as we transition our company’s efforts from identifying drug candidates to developing them for patients,” said Clifford J. Stocks, CEO of OncoResponse. “We now have several antibodies from our cancer patient-derived platform that are directed at modulating immunosuppression of the tumor microenvironment. This new capital will allow us to advance our programs through pre-clinical development and enable us to move our lead programs into clinical studies.”

“Since its inception in October 2015, OncoResponse has done an excellent job leveraging its platform to rapidly screen and discover therapeutically relevant antibodies from patients with elite response to immunotherapy,” said John McKearn, Ph.D., Managing Director of RiverVest Venture Partners. “We believe that their portfolio of unique drug candidates has the potential to help cancer patients, expanding the promise of immunotherapy.”

In January of 2018 the company added two experienced team members to its management team. Dr. Anil Singhal joined OncoResponse from AbbVie, where he helped build an impressive portfolio and key translational science capabilities in oncology, immunology and other diseases. Dr. Kamal Puri joined from Celgene, where he discovered new molecular entities for the immunology pipeline and identified and supported new indications for portfolio molecules. Drs. Singhal and Puri were appointed Chief Scientific Officer and Vice President of Research and Development, respectively.