Avelas Closes Round, Advancing Biologic That Illuminates Breast Cancer
San Diego’s Avelas Biosciences, which is developing a fluorescing peptide to illuminate cancerous tissue during breast surgery, says today it has closed the second tranche of its Series B round, bringing total funds raised in the round to $7.4 million.
Avelas says the capital will be used to move toward a first-in-human study in breast cancer surgery patients for AVB-620, an in vivo fluorescent protease-activated peptide that is its lead product candidate. The company says AVB-620 is expected to enter clinical studies later this year.
Protease activity is high in tumors and metastases, so a peptide that glows in the presence of high protease activity can be used to differentiate healthy tissue from cancerous tissue. The technology was developed by Roger Tsien, a biochemist at UC San Diego who shared the 2008 Nobel Prize in chemistry for his role in the discovery and development of green fluorescent protein.
Roger Tsien with tubes of fluorescing peptides (courtesy Tsien lab/UCSD)
Avelas says AVB-620 would be administered to patients intravenously before surgery. A fluorescence imaging camera system can then be used during surgery to light up cancerous areas and help surgeons decide what tissue should be excised. In preclinical testing, the accuracy of AVB-620 in the body is better than 95 percent, according to the company.
San Diego’s Avalon Ventures participated in the latest venture round, along with existing investors Torrey Pines Investment, WuXi PharmaTech Investments, and other unnamed investors.
Author: Bruce V. Bigelow
In Memoriam: Our dear friend Bruce V. Bigelow passed away on June 29, 2018. He was the editor of Xconomy San Diego from 2008 to 2018. Read more about his life and work here.
Bruce Bigelow joined Xconomy from the business desk of the San Diego Union-Tribune. He was a member of the team of reporters who were awarded the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in National Reporting for uncovering bribes paid to San Diego Republican Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham in exchange for special legislation earmarks. He also shared a 2006 award for enterprise reporting from the Society of Business Editors and Writers for “In Harm’s Way,” an article about the extraordinary casualty rate among employees working in Iraq for San Diego’s Titan Corp. He has written extensively about the 2002 corporate accounting scandal at software goliath Peregrine Systems. He also was a Gerald Loeb Award finalist and National Headline Award winner for “The Toymaker,” a 14-part chronicle of a San Diego start-up company. He takes special satisfaction, though, that the series was included in the library for nonfiction narrative journalism at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University.
Bigelow graduated from U.C. Berkeley in 1977 with a degree in English Literature and from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1979. Before joining the Union-Tribune in 1990, he worked for the Associated Press in Los Angeles and The Kansas City Times.
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