BioClin Therapeutics has raised $30 million in funding to move forward with more tests of its experimental treatment for bladder cancer.
New investors Sofinnova Ventures and Ysios Capital led the Series B round of financing for San Ramon, CA-based BioClin. Earlier investors HealthCap, Life Sciences Partners, and Tekla Capital Management also participated in the investment. BioClin says it has now raised a total of $59 million from investors.
BioClin’s lead drug candidate, B-701, is a monoclonal antibody developed to target fibroblast growth factor receptor 3 (FGFR3), a protein that is often mutated in patients with bladder cancer. So far, BioClin has tested its treatment in two Phase 1 clinical trials, one of which studied patients with advanced solid tumors, including bladder cancer.
With the new capital, BioClin says it will test its drug in patients who have metastatic bladder cancer or metastatic urothelial carcinoma and have either relapsed or failed to respond to first-line cancer treatments. The company says it will also expand a Phase 1b/2 clinical trial evaluating its drug in combination with the chemotherapy docetaxel.
BioClin also plans to start a a Phase 1b/2 trial evaluating its drug in combination with atezolizumab (Tecentriq), a Genentech immunotherapy drug that the FDA approved last year to treat the most common form of bladder cancer.
Public domain image of FGFR3 by Jawahar Swaminathan of the European Bioinformatics Institute.
