Kinnate Biopharma Secures $98 Million in Series C Round of Financing

Kinnate Biopharma raises $98 million in Series C financing round

Fremont, CA: Kinnate Biopharma, a biopharmaceutical company, working on discovering and developing small molecule kinase inhibitors for genomically-defined cancers that are difficult-to-treat, raised $98 million in Series C round of financing. The financing round was led by RA Capital Management with participation from additional new investors including Viking Global Investors, Venrock Healthcare Capital Partners, Fidelity Management & Research Company, LLC, Janus Henderson Investors, Surveyor Capital (a Citadel company), Boxer Capital of Tavistock Group, Logos Capital, and an investment fund affiliated with SVB Leerink. Existing investors of the company, Foresite Capital, OrbiMed, Nextech Invest, and Vida Ventures, also actively participated in the round. Last year, Kinnate closed a $74.5 million Series B funding round.

“In just over two years, Kinnate has built a proprietary pipeline of kinase inhibitors from the ground up, and this significant financing positions us to advance at least one of our lead product candidates into clinical development in the first half of next year,” said Nima Farzan, CEO of Kinnate. “We are pleased to expand our syndicate of world-class healthcare investors during this exciting time of growth for the company. Their expertise will be invaluable as we execute on our vision of increasing the availability of targeted therapies for the many cancer patients who currently lack access to effective precision medicines.”

Kinnate developed a wholly-owned kinase inhibitor portfolio through its deep expertise in structure-based drug discovery, translational research, and patient-driven precision medicine. The company’s leading preclinical program includes small molecule inhibitors targeting specific classes of BRAF kinase mutations (Class II and Class III mutations) and FGFR2 or FGFR3 alterations that will help to tackle resistance that commonly limits the efficacy of existing therapies. The company is also developing several other research programs. To help promote these programs, Kinnate is working with leaders at experienced precision medicine cancer centers, including the Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center and the UC San Diego Moores Cancer Center.

“The rapid advancement of genomic technologies has enabled the identification of many more people who may benefit from genomically-targeted therapies. However, because of non-response or resistance mutations, many fail to benefit from these potentially life-saving medicines,” said Peter Kolchinsky, Ph.D., managing partner at RA Capital Management. “We are proud to support the Kinnate team and see tremendous potential for their lead programs to significantly increase the number of people who could benefit from targeted precision oncology therapeutics.”

See also: Top Oncology Solution Companies