Domantis Raises $29 Million in Series B Financing
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Domantis has announced that it has raised US$29 million (£17 million) from new investors Novo Nordisk and MC Life Science Ventures, Inc. (a subsidiary of Mitsubishi Corporation), together with its existing investors. Domantis has raised a total of $83 million since its inception in 2000.
Commenting on the financing, Domantis’ CEO, Robert Connelly, said, "Domantis’ twelve lead programs are based on novel dAb products for treating major diseases including COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease), rheumatoid arthritis, asthma and colorectal cancer."
"This financing, together with the growing revenue stream from our nine partnerships, provides sufficient resources to fund the clinical development of these programs."
"We believe the significant potential of these products, the capacity of the dAb discovery engine to produce new drug candidates each year and our validating partnerships will help Domantis become a major biotech success story."
Domantis has recently achieved a number of significant milestones including the in vivo validation of several dAb therapeutic formats such as pulmonary administered dAbs for treating lung disease and dual targeting dAbs, where a single antibody product can address two completely different therapeutic targets.
Additional therapeutic partnerships have been signed with Argenta Discovery, Tanox and Peptech, culminating with a multi-year, multi-million dollar therapeutic alliance with Bristol-Myers Squibb that was announced earlier this month.
"This financing achieves our objectives of securing four years of funding at a significant uplift in valuation while attracting prominent strategic investors," added Mr Connelly.
"Novo Nordisk is the leading biotechnology company in Europe and has a major commitment to developing novel biologics."
"Mitsubishi Corporation can assist Domantis in executing our commercial strategy in the Pacific Rim. Both companies undertook extensive due diligence prior to investing and their confidence and commitment is rewarding."
Dr Mads Krogsgaard Thomsen, Executive Vice President and Chief Science Officer, Novo Nordisk added, "We are pleased to join Domantis as shareholders."
"The investment fits very well with Novo Nordisk's general strategy of establishing a portfolio of venture capital investments in promising biopharmaceutical companies."
