An Edinburgh biopharmaceutical company specialising in developing the next generation of anti-cancer therapies, has secured £6.74 million in Series A venture capital financing.
The financing will help NuCana to develop drug technology which could dramatically improve the treatment options for millions of patients diagnosed with cancer.
The investment was led by independent venture capital firm Sofinnova Partners, and joined by Morningside Ventures, the Scottish Investment Bank’s Scottish Venture Fund and Alida Capital International.
Cancer drug development
Hugh Griffith, CEO of NuCana, stated: “This financing is a very significant step forward for the Company because it will allow us to take a range of known cancer drugs, that we have improved by applying the ProTide technology, into clinical development.
We are delighted to have attracted the support of such sophisticated healthcare investors with the ability to add considerable value to NuCana."
NuCana has exclusive worldwide rights to the revolutionary ProTide technology in cancer. Its approach is to target specific patients whose cancers are resistant to some of the anti-cancer drugs in common use today.
ProTide technology
Adding ProTide allows the cancer drugs to bypass the key pathways that make cancer cells resistant and as such greatly extends their utility. NuCana’s first compound, a gemcitabine ProTide, will enter clinical studies in early 2012, rapidly followed by two other ProTides.
Professor Chris McGuigan, Professor of Medicinal Chemistry at Cardiff University and an inventor of the ProTide technology, added: “The ProTide technology has been widely applied to anti-viral nucleosides, by companies such as Gilead, Pharmasset and Inhibitex, with dramatic improvement in efficacy and tolerability. NuCana’s focus on the anti-cancer nucleosides is very exciting.”
In the past the company’s founders gained notable scientific and business success in the development and commercialisation of a medicine to treat childhood leukaemia. The company was listed on Nasdaq in 2007 and sold for $345 million to a major international drugs corporation.
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