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news.Deciphera Pharmaceuticals has closed a $75m Series B financing led by New Leaf Venture Partners and joined by Deciphera’s existing investors.
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The proceeds will enable Deciphera to advance its pipeline of proprietary switch control kinase inhibitors through multiple key clinical milestones. Concurrent with the financing, Liam Ratcliffe, M.D., Ph.D., Managing Director at New Leaf Venture Partners, will join Deciphera’s board of directors.
Deciphera Pharmaceuticals president and CEO Michael Taylor said: "We are very pleased to have secured significant funding from one of the preeminent life science investors, New Leaf Venture Partners, whose commitment to Deciphera reflects the strong potential of our unique switch control kinase inhibitors to address the unmet needs of patients with cancer.
"The proceeds of this financing will be used to advance our lead candidates, altiratinib and DCC-2618, through clinical proof- of-concept and further develop our strong pipeline including rebastinib and DCC-3014."
Altiratinib is currently in a late Phase 1 dose escalation study with Phase 1 expansion trials in patients with actionable MET genomic alterations expected to start early in 2016. DCC-2618 is expected to enter a first-in-human Phase 1 dose escalation trial before the end of the year.
"New Leaf Venture Partners is excited to support the Deciphera team as they develop multiple promising drug candidates that address the continued need for effective and safe medicines in the treatment of cancer," said Dr. Ratcliffe.
"We believe that Deciphera has developed an exceptional pipeline of unique switch control kinase inhibitors that will provide the foundation for building a substantial oncology company."
Deciphera’s proprietary switch control kinase inhibitor technology platform has enabled the development of advanced small molecule kinase inhibitor therapeutics that provide robust and durable kinase binding and block key cancer signaling mechanisms and mutational resistance.
Deciphera’s product pipeline includes four product candidates in Phase 1 clinical development including altiratinib (DCC-2701), a MET/TIE2/VEGFR2/TRK inhibitor; DCC-2618, a pan-KIT inhibitor; rebastinib, a TIE2 kinase inhibitor; and a pan-RAF inhibitor (LY-3009120) being developed by partner Eli Lilly. In addition, DCC-3014, Deciphera’s selective inhibitor of CSF1R, is currently in preclinical development.