NextCure Secures $93M Series B Financing to Advance Two Novel Immunotherapies Including NC318

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VCBeat (WeChat: vcbeat) has learned that NextCure, a privately held biopharmaceutical company dedicated to developing next-generation immuno-oncology therapies for cancer and other diseases, announced on November 13, 2018 (local time) the completion of a $93 million Series B financing round. The round was led by Hillhouse Capital Management and Quan Capital, with participation from other investors including Bay City Capital, Surveyor Capital (a Citadel company), Ping An Ventures, Taiho Ventures LLC, ArrowMark Partners, and NS Investment. All existing investors also participated in this round, including Canaan Partners, Lilly Asia Ventures, OrbiMed Advisors LLC, Pfizer Inc., Sofinnova Ventures, and Alexandria Venture Investments. In addition, Eli Lilly and Company had already invested $15 million when it announced its collaboration with NextCure on November 5, 2018.

In this round of financing, Michael Yi, MBA, from Hillhouse Capital Management, and Stella Xu, PhD, from Quan Capital will join the board of directors.

The proceeds will be primarily allocated to the clinical development of the company’s two lead drug candidates, including NC318 and another novel immunotherapy agent. The funds will also support the ongoing collaboration between NextCure and Eli Lilly and Company. This partnership aims to leverage NextCure’s proprietary FIND-IO™ platform to identify new cancer therapeutic targets. Michael Richman, President of NextCure, stated, “We are delighted to welcome a distinguished group of new investors to NextCure and appreciate the strong continued support from our existing investors. Over the past two and a half years, we have made significant progress, and we look forward to advancing the clinical development of NC318 and further expanding our first-in-class pipeline.”

NC318 is an antibody targeting Siglec-15 (S15), which is expressed on a restricted subset of myeloid cells within the tumor microenvironment and in certain tumor types (lung cancer, ovarian cancer, and head and neck cancer). Preclinical studies have shown that S15 promotes the survival and differentiation of immunosuppressive myeloid cells and negatively regulates T-cell function, thereby facilitating tumor growth. Post-clinical studies have demonstrated that NC318 blocks the negative effects of S15. NC318 is a novel tumor immunotherapy drug with the potential to treat various cancers.

The FIND-IO™ platform identifies novel cell surface molecular interactions that can drive functional immune responses. NextCure has developed proprietary methods to evaluate immune pathways in primary immune cells and to establish cell lines derived from both immune and non-immune lineages, including T cells, natural killer cells, macrophages, and myeloid-derived suppressor cells. NextCure is applying its current FIND-IO™ technology to functional screening approaches to identify new targets across multiple therapeutic areas, including autoimmunity and neurology, thereby enabling next-generation immunotherapies to expand beyond oncology.

NextCure is a biopharmaceutical company dedicated to discovering and developing next-generation, first-in-class immunotherapies for cancer and other diseases. By leveraging its FIND-IO™ technology to functionally identify targets that may influence immune responses, the company has established a novel immunotherapy development pipeline. Its initial focus is on providing hope and new therapeutic options for patients who have not responded to existing standard treatments or immuno-oncology therapies.