Bright Peak Therapeutics has successfully secured investment of 90 million US dollars after closing a Series C financing round. According to a press release, Johnson & Johnson Innovation – JJDC led the financing round for the biotechnology company, which is based in Allschwil at the Main Campus of the Switzerland Innovation Park Basel Area and in San Diego in the US State of California. Other investors taking part in the round included the founding investor Versant Ventures, as well as Fidelity Management & Research Company, RA Capital Management, Qatar Investment Authority, Invus, Alexandria Venture Investments and an undisclosed leading healthcare investment fund, while Venrock, KB Investment and Northleaf Capital Partners participated as new investors.

With the proceeds from this financing round, the company is aiming to advance BPT567, a first-in-class PD1-IL18 immunoconjugate, into a Phase 1/2a clinical trial in the second half of 2024. Preclinical models have demonstrated that single agent BPT567 possesses a highly targeted biological and therapeutic effect with potent antitumor activity by blocking the PD-1 receptor, while at the same time directing the potent pro-inflammatory effects of IL-18 specifically to effector T cells in the tumor microenvironment.

Lead program gets into the clinic

“We are now well positioned to bring much needed innovation to the field of anti-PD-1 immune-checkpoint inhibition and look forward to advancing our lead program into the clinic later this year across multiple tumor types”, comments Fredrik Wiklund, Chief Executive Officer of Bright Peak, in the press release, before adding: “This capital raise provides financial flexibility to bring new therapeutic modalities to patients with cancer and we’re delighted to have attracted the confidence of a global pharmaceutical company and strong support from such a distinguished syndicate of leading life sciences investors”.