Artios Pharma Ltd raises US-$153m Series C financing

With the Series C investment, the UK-based DNA Damage Response (DDR) specialist’s has raised more than $320m. The oversubscribed current US$153 million Series C financing will be used to advance the clincial development of its promising Phase I ATR inhibitor ART0380 in treating DDR defective tumours, as well as its selective Pol? inhibitor ART4215 for monotherapy and combination treatments.

The financing was co-led by Omega Funds and TCG X. Additional investors include Avidity Partners, Invus, Deep Track Capital, Sofinnova Partners, Tetragon Financial Group, RTW Investments LP, Soleus Capital, Piper Heartland Healthcare Capital, CaaS Capital Management, and Schroders Capital.  These new investors join existing investors Arix Bioscience plc, SV Health Investors, Andera Partners, LSP (Life Sciences Partners), M Ventures, Pfizer Ventures, IP Group plc, and Novartis Venture Fund who also continue to support Artios through their participation.

In December 2020, Artios entered into a collaboration agreement with Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany to identify and develop precision oncology medicines targeting nucleases. Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany has the right to opt into exclusive development and commercialization of compounds on up to eight targets with Artios to receive up to $860 million total milestones per target. In April 2021, Artios entered into a collaboration with Novartis to identify DDR targets to use with Novartis’ proprietary radioligand therapies with Artios receiving a $20 million up-front payment in addition to near term research funding to support the collaboration. Artios is eligible to receive up to $1.3 billion in discovery, development, regulatory and sales-based milestones in addition to royalty payments.

In connection with the close of the Series C financing, Michelle Doig, Partner, Head of Corporate Development, Omega Funds and Chen Yu, Founding Managing Partner, TCG X, will join Artios’ Board of Directors.A