Date: 2015-07-01
Type of information: Series A financing round
Company: Corvus Pharmaceuticals (USA - CA)
Investors: OrbiMed (USA - NY) Adams Street Partners (USA) Novo Ventures (Denmark)
Amount: $33.5 million (€ 30.08 milion)
Funding type: series A financing round
Planned used: Corvus Pharmaceuticals is a newly formed company launched by Richard A.Miller, the founding chief executive of Pharmacyclics Inc., acquired by AbbVie for $21 billion. Dr. Miller, who was Pharmacyclics CEO until September 2008, teamed up with former Pharmacyclics executive Joseph J. Buggy and OrbiMed Private Equity Partner Peter Thompson to form Corvus. The company develops immuno-oncology drugs. Its most advanced medicine is also a checkpoint inhibitor that may be effective on its own and in combination with anti-PD-1 or PD-L1 drugs. Corvus intends to initiate Phase Ib clinical trials in solid-tumor patients in early 2016. Corvus’s other programs include a preclinical drug that reprograms T cells to make them more toxic to tumor cells. The company, based in Burlingame, Calif., also has an early-stage antibody checkpoint inhibitor and an early-stage small-molecule checkpoint inhibitor.
Others: * On July 1, 2015, the newly formed Corvus Pharmaceuticals announced that its CEO, Richard A. Miller has raised a $33.5 million Series A round in December led by OrbiMed Advisors. The company is also funded by Adams Street Partners and Novo Ventures. OrbiMed’s Dr. Thompson has joined the Corvus board along with Novo Ventures Partner Peter Moldt and Adams Street Partner Terry Gould.
Therapeutic area: Cancer - Oncology
