EMERYVILLE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Eureka Therapeutics, Inc., a clinical stage biotechnology company focused on improving the safety profile of T cell therapies and developing novel T cell therapies for the treatment of solid tumors, today announced the successful completion of a $60 million Series D financing round. Proceeds will be used to advance Eureka’s lead candidate, ET190L1-ARTEMIS™ T cells in relapsed and refractory CD19+ Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma, as well as to accelerate its pipeline of innovative immunotherapies against other hematological and solid tumors.
Acorn Pacific Ventures led the round, with participation from GP Capital and all existing major investors.
“Eureka’s team has made remarkable progress, and we are excited to support the next phase of growth as the company advances its immuno-oncology pipeline into clinical trials,” said C.K. Cheng, General Partner, Acorn Pacific Ventures.
“2017 was a transformational year for Eureka. This financing represents an important validation of our strategy, and provides us the resources to advance our ARTEMIS™ T cell platform into clinical development,” said Cheng Liu, PhD, President and Chief Executive Officer of Eureka. “This financing will help expand our drug development efforts, and we look forward to applying our ARTEMIS™ technology to broader classes of patients than currently can be treated with CAR-T therapies.”
In November 2017, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved Eureka’s investigational new drug (IND) application and authorized Eureka to commence a Phase I clinical trial for ET190L1-ARTEMIS™ T cells in Relapsed and Refractory CD19+ Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma (NHL). Eureka expects to enroll the first patient in this trial at Duke University in the first quarter of 2018.
ET190L1-ARTEMIS™ utilizes Eureka’s proprietary ARTEMIS™ T cell receptor platform and proprietary human anti-CD19 binder to target CD19+ malignancies. In preclinical studies, ET190L1-ARTEMIS™ matched the cancer killing potency of CAR-T therapies but with a dramatic reduction in the levels of inflammatory cytokines released. The FDA has identified cytokine release syndrome (CRS) and neurotoxicity as significant safety issues associated with CAR-T therapies. With promising preclinical data, Eureka’s ET190L1-ARTEMIS™ T cells holds the potential to be a clinically safer therapy by mitigating CAR T cell therapy-triggered CRS and neurotoxicity.
About Eureka Therapeutics, Inc.
Eureka Therapeutics, Inc. is a privately held clinical stage biotechnology company, headquartered in the San Francisco Bay area, focused on improving the safety profile of T cell therapies and developing T cell therapies for hematological malignancies and solid tumors. Eureka’s core technology centers around its proprietary ARTEMIS™ T cell receptor platform and proprietary E-ALPHA® phage display library for the discovery and engineering of human antibodies against intracellular targets via the MHC class I complex. The company is developing a pipeline of novel cancer therapeutics targeting intracellular oncogenes as well as cell-surface antigens.
For more information, please visit: www.eurekainc.com
