Numab increases Series C financing by 50 to 180 million francs

(CONNECT) Numab Therapeutics has raised CHF 50 million in an oversubscribed extension of its Series C financing round. This brings the total amount of this series to CHF 180 million. The round was led by Cormorant Asset Management (Boston, USA), Forbion via its Forbion Growth Opportunities Fund (NL, D, USA), HBM Healthcare Investments (Zug) and Novo Holdings (Hellerup, Denmark), according to a company statement. Other existing investors as well as funds and accounts managed by BlackRock also participated.

Numab intends to use the proceeds from the financing to accelerate and further develop its pipeline of clinical and preclinical best-in-class and first-in-class multispecific antibodies for the treatment of inflammation and cancer. Bihua Chen, founder and CEO of investor Cormorant Asset Management, believes that "multispecific antibodies have the advantage of making clinical trial design more efficient. We look forward to continuing to support the team in identifying and pursuing the best rational biologic combinations for their platform."

As Numab CEO and founder Dr. David Urech explains, his company has made "tremendous progress" in terms of developing its pipeline and the company, including the acquisition of Numab spin-off Yellow Jersey Therapeutics by pharmaceutical company Johnson & Johnson for 1.25 billion dollars. "We are delighted to start the year by strengthening our financial position with the support of this strong group of investors." This allows Numab to "minimize the risk in the development of our proprietary pipeline". ce/mm