-- Frazier Life Sciences and Lightspeed Venture
Partners co-led financing, with significant participation from
existing and additional new investors --
-- Proceeds support further mid-stage clinical
development of STX-478, a potentially best-in-class
mutant-selective PI3Kα program for treatment of breast cancer and
other solid tumors as a monotherapy and in combination with
standard-of-care therapies --
-- Scorpion's fully-integrated small molecule
discovery engine continues to fuel a growing precision oncology
pipeline including additional clinical-stage and discovery-stage
programs --
Scorpion Therapeutics, Inc. (“Scorpion”), a pioneering
clinical-stage oncology company dedicated to transforming the lives
of cancer patients by redefining the frontier of precision
oncology, today announced the closing of a $150 million Series C
financing. The financing was co-led by Frazier Life Sciences and
Lightspeed Venture Partners, and included additional new support
from Willett Advisors and leading healthcare institutional
investors, along with existing investors Omega Funds, Vida
Ventures, Atlas Venture, Abingworth, Fidelity Management &
Research Company, Boxer Capital, EcoR1 Capital, LLC, Surveyor
Capital (a Citadel company), Invus, Wellington Management, Nextech
Invest Ltd. (on behalf of one or more funds managed by it),
OrbiMed, Logos Capital, Woodline Partners LP, and Casdin Capital,
LLC. In connection with the financing, Shelley Chu, M.D., Ph.D.,
Partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners, will transition to an
investor board member and Albert Cha, M.D., Ph.D., Managing Partner
at Frazier Life Sciences, will join Scorpion's board as an
observer.
“The robust demand for this capital raise is a testament to
Scorpion's continued clinical execution, the strength of our
emerging clinical data, and the quality of our rapidly advancing
pipeline,” said Adam Friedman, M.D., Ph.D., Chief Executive Officer
of Scorpion. “We are pleased to strengthen the Company's financial
position and expand Scorpion’s existing blue-chip investor
syndicate with these additional leaders in life sciences who share
our commitment to improving outcomes for people living with cancer
by broadening the reach and impact of precision medicines.”
“At Frazier Life Sciences, our goal is to invest in and develop
transformational therapeutics companies. Scorpion continues to
display an impressive track record of developing potentially
best-in-class and first-in-class selective small molecule compounds
for cancer,” said Dr. Albert Cha. “With the combination of
Scorpion's clinical progress, advancing pipeline, validating
partnerships and veteran leadership team, we believe the Company is
well-positioned to rapidly develop therapeutics that will make a
meaningful difference in patients’ lives.”
“Lightspeed is pleased to support Scorpion through this
important next phase of growth,” said Dr. Shelley Chu. “The team
has made remarkable progress since inception, and we believe
Scorpion's targeted approach may be able to overcome the
selectivity challenges that plague existing treatment options,
ultimately providing better outcomes to patients by offering
improvements in both efficacy and safety. In particular, Scorpion’s
mutant-selective PI3Kα inhibitor, STX-478, has the potential to
become a best-in-class treatment for patients with PI3Kα-mutated
breast cancer and other solid tumors, and we look forward to
partnering with management to further explore STX-478 in mid-stage
clinical trials.”
Scorpion plans to use the proceeds from this financing to
advance its pipeline of differentiated small molecule oncology
programs, in particular, to expand clinical development of its
allosteric, differentiated, mutant-selective PI3Kα inhibitor,
STX-478. Further, the Company will continue to advance its
clinical-stage EGFR inhibitor franchise, including STX-721 and
STX-241, and its discovery pipeline of next-generation precision
oncology therapies.
About STX-478
STX-478 was designed to improve outcomes in patients harboring
PI3Kα mutations, one of the most prevalent drivers of cancer,
occurring in over 166,000 patients per year with breast,
gynecological and other solid tumors in the United States alone. In
preclinical models, STX-478 demonstrated robust activity across a
range of PI3Kα mutations while sparing wild-type PI3Kα inhibition
in normal tissues; previous generations of non-selective PI3Kα
inhibitors have limited patient benefit due to these on-target
toxicities. Scorpion’s Phase 1/2 clinical trial is a multi-center,
global, open-label study designed to evaluate the safety and
tolerability of STX-478 in multiple ascending doses for patients
with locally advanced or metastatic HR+/HER2- breast cancer and
other solid tumors driven by PI3Kα mutations. The program entered
the clinic in 2023 and has rapidly advanced, now in multiple
expansion cohorts across a range of solid tumors and in breast
cancer as monotherapy and in combinations with fulvestrant and
CDK4/6 inhibitors. The Company remains on-track to disclose initial
safety, pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic data, and preliminary
efficacy data at a future academic conference. To learn more about
the first-in-human trial of STX-478, please visit this page.
About Scorpion Therapeutics
Scorpion is a pioneering clinical-stage oncology company
redefining the frontier of precision medicine to deliver optimized
and transformational therapies for larger populations of patients
with cancer. Scorpion has built a proprietary and fully-integrated
platform of the most advanced technologies across cancer biology,
medicinal chemistry, and data sciences, with the goal of
consistently and rapidly creating exquisitely selective small
molecule compounds against an unprecedented spectrum of targets.
Scorpion aims to leverage its platform to advance a broad pipeline
of wholly-owned, optimized compounds across three target
categories: best-in-class molecules targeting validated oncogene
targets; first-in-class molecules for previously undruggable
targets; and first-in-class molecules for novel cancer targets. For
more information, visit www.scorpiontx.com.
About Frazier Life Sciences
Frazier Life Sciences invests globally in private and
publicly-traded companies that discover, develop, and commercialize
innovative biopharmaceuticals. Frazier Life Sciences manages over
$3.9 billion in capital, including venture funds focusing on
company creation and private companies and a public fund focused on
small and mid-cap public companies. Since 2005, over 60 Frazier
Life Sciences portfolio companies, many of which were created or
seeded by Frazier, have completed IPOs or M&As. The Frazier
Life Sciences team consists of over 40 professionals with deep
expertise in biopharmaceuticals, primarily located in Palo Alto,
Calif. (headquarters), San Diego, Seattle, Boston, New York and
London.
About Lightspeed Venture Partners
Lightspeed Venture Partners is a multi-stage venture capital
firm focused on accelerating disruptive innovations and trends in
the Enterprise, Consumer, Health, and Fintech sectors. Over the
past two decades, the Lightspeed team has backed hundreds of
entrepreneurs and helped build more than 500 companies globally
including biotechnology companies such as Abata, Ancora, Diagonal,
Enlaza, Forty Seven, Personalis, Pheon, Teneobio, Triana, Scorpion,
Seismic, Ultima Genomics, Xaira, and more. Lightspeed and its
global team currently manage $25B in AUM across the Lightspeed
platform, with investment professionals and advisors in the U.S.,
Europe, India, Israel, and Southeast Asia. www.lsvp.com
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version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240716155044/en/
Media Contact: Emily Anderson Vice President,
Communications emily@scorpiontx.com
Investor Contact: Emiley Demick Precision AQ (formerly
Stern IR) emiley.demick@precisionaq.com