Viking’s investment is the latest in a series of deals Inhibrx has struck to fund its efforts. The company signed its first major agreement in 2012, an option and license agreement with Summit, NJ-based Celgene (NASDAQ: [[ticker:CELG]]) for a pre-clinical monoclonal antibody the startup had developed. Inhibrx didn’t reveal how much it was paid upfront, but the pharma company agreed to more than $500 million in future payments tied to clinical progress.
So far, the partnered drug hasn’t made much progress toward those milestones. Celgene last year ended one of its two clinical trials of the antibody—an anti-CD47 cancer therapy—as a treatment for acute myeloid leukemia and myelodysplastic syndromes. Enrollment is underway in a separate Phase 1 study testing the investigational drug in combination with the Roche immunotherapy rituximab in solid tumors and blood cancers.
In 2015, the company inked a research and license agreement with Five Prime Therapeutics (NASDAQ: [[ticker:FPRX]]), which gave the South San Francisco-based company the rights to antibodies Inhibrx developed targeting the protein GITR, believed to activate an immune response against tumor cells. It also signed an equity deal with The Alpha-1 Project (TAP), which backs companies working to commercialize treatments for diseases associated with alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency (AATD), which can lead to the development of lung and liver diseases.
Five Prime ended the partnership, from which Inhibrx received $10 million upfront, in 2017. Inhibrx plans to advance an investigational drug for patients with AATD into Phase 1 later this year.
Early this year Inhibrx formalized a partnership it had struck with Cambridge, MA-based cell and gene therapy developer Bluebird Bio (NASDAQ: [[ticker:BLUE]]) to develop CAR-T products using Inhibrx’s technology. Inhibrx received a $7 million upfront payment, and was promised an undisclosed amount of milestone payments and royalties on any resulting products.
Including the money from Viking, the company says it has raised more than $205 million since its launch. Of the funds Inhibrx has raised to date, about two-thirds have been in investor equity and debt and one-third in licensing and grant payments, according to the company.
In addition to Greenwich, CT-based Viking, Inhibrx’s investors include RA Capital, Lilly Asia Ventures, ArrowMark Partners, WuXi Biologics, and Alexandria. The company has received grants from agencies including the National Institutes of Health, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and the public-private CARB-X consortium.
