Dallas—Peloton Therapeutics, which is developing small molecule cancer therapies, announced Thursday it has raised $52.4 million in a Series D financing round.
Investors included Foresite Capital Management, a new investor, and previous backers Remeditex, The Column Group, Tichenor Ventures, Topspin Fund, and Nextech Invest.
Jim Tananbaum, Foresite’s CEO and managing director, said in a prepared statement that he is excited about Peloton’s effort to target hypoxia-inducible factor-2a, or HIF-2a, in patients’ renal cell carcinoma. He also said he sees potential applications in von Hippel-Lindau disease and glioblastoma multiforme, among other diseases.
In August, Peloton received an $11 million Specialized Program of Research Excellence, or SPORE, grant from the National Cancer Institute. The funds will be used to further research into finding biomarkers that indicate the possible development of cancerous tumors in the kidney, according to D Healthcare Daily.
Founded in 2010, Peloton’s drug candidate, PT2385, is currently in phase I clinical trials for the treatment of advanced or metastatic clear cell kidney cancer. The American Cancer Society estimates that more than 62,000 new cases of kidney cancer will be diagnosed this year.
