HAYWARD, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Eikon Therapeutics, Inc., a pioneer in the application of live-cell super-resolution microscopy to drug discovery, today announced that it has closed a $517.8 million Series B financing. Since its founding two years ago, Eikon Therapeutics has raised more than $668 million to advance its mission of inventing new therapies that address grievous illness.
New investors participating in the Series B financing include funds and accounts advised by T. Rowe Price Associates, Inc., Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPP Investments), EcoR1 Capital, UC Investments (Office of the Chief Investment Officer of the Regents of the University of California), ADIA, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, StepStone Group, Soros Capital, Schroders Capital, Harel Insurance, General Catalyst, E15 VC, Hartford HealthCare Endowment, and AME Cloud Ventures. The financing also included participation from the company’s Series A investors: The Column Group, Foresite Capital, Innovation Endeavors, Lux Capital, and Horizons Ventures.
“Through the integration of advanced engineering and high-performance computing, alongside more traditional molecular biology and medicinal chemistry, Eikon is developing a battery of innovative tools for biological exploration,” said Roger M. Perlmutter, MD, PhD, CEO and Chairman of the Board of Eikon Therapeutics. “With the support of our investors, we continue to make dramatic progress in the industrialization of our live-cell imaging platform. We will use the resources of this new financing to progress more quickly toward our mission of inventing innovative medicines that will improve and extend life.”
Biochemical regulation requires dynamic, short-lived interactions among intracellular constituents. Yet much of the scientific community’s understanding of these biological systems is based on static snapshots, typically obtained using frozen or fixed material. Eikon aims to change this with proprietary, purpose-built platforms that permit precise characterization of protein interactions in living cells with exceptional spatial and temporal resolution. This approach requires the integration of tools that support advanced imaging, high-performance computing, molecular and cellular biology, medicinal chemistry, and robotics.
“Eikon’s research at the intersection of technology, biology, and chemistry is generating significant volumes of quantitative information about the dynamic behavior of proteins. These insights are useful not only for biomedical research purposes, but they also hold promise for therapeutic development,” said John Hall, PhD, Investment Analyst at T. Rowe Price. “We are pleased to support Eikon’s world-class interdisciplinary team as they work to develop proprietary technology platforms for the evaluation of biological systems, and to accelerate the introduction of breakthrough medicines.”
Eikon has also completed recruitment of an experienced team of industry executives to senior leadership positions, including:
- Daniel Anderson, PhD – Chief Scientific Officer; Anderson joined from Recursion Pharmaceuticals where he was VP of Biology
- Russ Berman – Chief Technical Officer; Berman joined from Pacific Biosciences where he was VP of Engineering
- Alfred (Freddie) Bowie, Jr., PhD – Chief Financial Officer; Bowie joined from Veracyte where he was VP of Corporate and Business Development
- Barbara Howes, Chief People Officer; Howes joined from Pliant Therapeutics where she was Chief Human Resources Officer
- Ashish Kheterpal, Chief Information Officer; Kheterpal joined from PACT Pharma where he was Chief Information Officer
- Ben Thorner, General Counsel & Chief Business Officer; Thorner joined from Merck where he was most recently Senior Vice President and Head of BD&L at Merck Research Laboratories
“By successfully integrating robotics, high-performance computing and advanced data analytics, Eikon has built a drug hunting biofactory of the future. The company’s proprietary single-particle tracking platform enables them to peer into live cells, in real-time, and derive biological insights never visualized before,” said Adam Goulburn, PhD, Partner at Lux Capital. “Combining this pioneering platform with Roger’s leadership and the Eikon team's drug development pedigree, puts the company at the very forefront of discovery in the biotech industry.”
About Eikon Therapeutics
Eikon Therapeutics is a drug discovery and development company. Our proprietary platform leverages Nobel Prize-winning super-resolution microscopy, advanced engineering, and automation with the goal of bringing important new medicines to patients suffering from grievous illness. Scientists at Eikon measure the real-time movement of individual proteins in living cells to develop differentiated therapeutics. Eikon is based in Hayward, California and can be found online via our website or on Twitter or LinkedIn.
