PhoreMost, the UK-based biopharmaceutical company dedicated to ‘Drugging the Undruggable®’ disease targets, has completed an oversubscribed £33 million Series B investment round.
PhoreMost’s SITESEEKER platform can identify the best new therapeutic targets for any chosen disease setting and rapidly identify how to develop novel drugs to these targets. This can significantly increase the diversity of novel treatments for cancer and other unmet diseases. PhoreMost has recently deployed SITESEEKER to identify novel E3-ligands within the targeted protein degradation therapeutic modality space.
BGF led the funding, which included new investors XtalPi Inc., Astellas Venture Management, Trend Investment Group, and o2h ventures. Existing investors Parkwalk Advisors, Morningside Ventures, and Jonathan Milner also contributed.
Following the investment round, Dr Catherine Beech will assume the Chair of PhoreMost’s Board of Directors, succeeding Dr Jonathan Milner who will stay on the Board as an NED. Also joining the Board are Tim Rea, investor at BGF, Alan Jiang, Chief Strategy Officer of XtalPi, and Neil Pegg representing Morningside Ventures.
According to Dr Chris Torrance, CEO, PhoreMost:
“PhoreMost is at an incredibly exciting phase of development, having made tremendous progress since the Series A funding. Our lead ‘Allosteric PLK1’ asset is well positioned for clinical entry, and our SITESEEKER platform has made valuable discoveries within the targeted protein degradation, oncology, and ageing fields.
This funding now positions PhoreMost well to prosecute asset development across these high-value therapeutic areas.”
According to Tim Rea, investor, BGF:
“The team at BGF has been actively engaged in expanding our support for life sciences companies in the UK and we are excited to join the PhoreMost team on the next phase of their journey.
The company’s SITESEEKER technology is highly differentiated, addressing an important market need in the identification of novel drug sites within targets previously considered undruggable. We have been consistently impressed with the strong and experienced management team, and we believe PhoreMost is now in an ideal position to capitalise on the potential of its lead asset and innovative pipeline.”
The funding will be used to progress PhoreMost’s preclinical ‘Allosteric PLK1’ collaboration with Sentinel Oncology into the clinic in 2022. The programme is initially targeted towards Glioma.
PhoreMost will also progress multiple additional internal first-in-class drug discovery programmes across both oncology and ageing therapeutic indications.
Lead image: FreePik.
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