March 5, 2015
By Riley McDermid, BioSpace.com Breaking News Sr. Editor
Rare cancer startup Aura Biosciences has received a $21 million Series B round of funding from various investor, including Chief Executive Officer of Genzyme Corporation Henri Termeer, the company said Thursday, as it added a host of former Genzyme execs to its C-level ranks and began rolling out its lead candidate.
The financing was led by Advent Life Sciences, with participation from new investors, Chiesi Ventures, Ysios Capital, and Alexandria Venture Investments, and existing investors LI-COR Biosciences.
As part of the deal, Dale Pfost, general partner at Advent Life Sciences, Art Pappas, CEO of A.M. Pappas & Associates, and Joël Jean-Mairet, managing partner at Ysios Capital will join Aura’s Board of Directors. Current Board member Alan Walts, former head of Genzyme Ventures, will become executive chairman, while Alison Lawton, former Genzyme executive and former COO of OvaScience, will be appointed as chief operating officer.
“Aura Biosciences is developing first-in-class drugs for rare ocular cancers that can improve patient outcomes and positively impact patient lives,” said Pfost. “The data generated from Aura’s platform suggests that there is great potential to treat ocular cancers in a completely novel way with high tumor specificity along with maximal drug and laser penetration that can eliminate tumors with no damage to other ocular structures.”
The Cambridge, Mass.-based startup is focused on developing a platform based on viral nanoparticles, a new class of drugs that use unique cell targeting to treat cancer. Aura is a bit of a one-man band, with most of its technology discovered and developed in partnership with John Schiller’s lab at the National Cancer Institute (NCI). These particles target solid tumors and metastases while leaving normal epithelium untouched.
“Aura’s lead product incorporates a viral nanoparticle conjugated with a potent cell-killing laser-activated molecule (IRDye 700DX, LI-COR Biosciences) that is delivered efficiently and selectively to cancerous cells, thereby reducing or eliminating the risk of non-specific activity and/or undesirable toxicity,” said the company.
Aura said Thursday that it will plough its new funding into unique and novel therapies into clinical trials for the treatment of rare cancers of the eye, and to reach for approval for additional cancer indications.
“Our investors share our vision and our conviction that our technology will uniquely enable the development of breakthrough therapies for orphan cancers that have no effective treatments,” said Elisabet de los Pinos, founder and CEO of Aura Biosciences. “Our lead product is focused on treating ocular cancers that are life-threatening, yet for which patients have no targeted or FDA-approved therapies available. We are dedicated to bringing to this patient population first-in-class therapies that can both eliminate the tumor and preserve vision.”
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Last week controversy erupted over the compensation package for Sanofi’s new CEO, Olivier Brandicourt, with several French government officials decrying the amount, calling it “incomprehensible.” Brandicourt could walk off with as much as $4.5 million in a “golden handshake” payment in addition to making $4.76 million a year. That base figure is comprised by a fixed annual salary of $1.36 million a year, which is supplemented by a performance-related bonus of between 150 to 250 percent, as well as stock options and performance shares.
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