Dive Brief:
- Eikon Therapeutics, the startup helmed by former Merck research chief Roger Perlmutter, has acquired several experimental medicines from fellow privately-held drugmakers, the company announced Thursday.
- The Hayward, California-based biotechnology company also raised $106 million in the “first close” of a Series C round, bringing the company’s total funding to nearly $775 million since its public debut two years ago. Eikon expects to complete the Series C “in the next several months,” Perlmutter told BioPharma Dive.
- Eikon was formed based on a Nobel Prize-winning technology that allows scientists to look at how proteins move inside of cells. The startup is developing some drugs in-house, but is acquiring others because some fellow biotechs have asked for Eikon’s assistance advancing their own programs, Perlmutter said.
Dive Insight:
With the substantial private funding it’s raised to date, Eikon has already surpassed the totals of nearly every private biotech to go public since 2018, according to BioPharma Dive data. The only startup to raise more pre-IPO cash was Moderna, one of the most richly funded drug startups in history.
Its funding strategy is a sign of the times for startups. Venture capital firms have been selective about their investments during the sector’s downturn and, with IPOs difficult to pull off, keeping their portfolio companies private for longer.
While companies with drugmaking “platforms” have drawn greater scrutiny, some, like RNA-focused startups Orbital Therapeutics and ReNAgade Therapeutics, have had success raising sizable fundings of late. Eikon is now following with a round that values the company at a “meaningful step-up” to a nearly $518 million Series B and includes “several new strategic investors,” Perlmutter said.
Eikon, which previously hadn’t disclosed anything about its pipeline, has also begun acquiring assets. Alongside its funding, the company announced deals for drug candidates from three biotech companies, each of which are in various phases of clinical stage testing.
Since hiring former Merck chief medical officer Roy Baynes, Eikon has had “significant interest from other companies that were eager to enable us to bring their drug candidates into clinical development,” Perlmutter said.
One deal gives Eikon a set of cancer drug prospects from startup Seven and Eight Biopharmaceuticals, one of which is in Phase 2 testing in cancer patients with solid tumors. Those drugs are meant to spur anti-tumor activity by targeting certain toll-like receptor proteins.
Another acquisition gives Eikon two PARP inhibitors discovered by Impact Therapeutics and meant to be more “selective” than similar, existing medicines. The third deal, with Cleave Therapeutics, involves preclinical prospects for cancer and neurodegenerative conditions.
Beyond those drugs, Eikon has more than 15 additional in-house programs, according to Perlmutter. Eikon hasn’t provided details.
Its pipeline “will continue to grow both organically and through strategic partnerships, largely asset acquisitions,” he said.
Eikon is based on a type of microscope technology called "super-resolution microscopy,” which allows scientists to study single molecules inside cells. One of the physicists who co-founded Eikon, Eric Betzig, was part of the group that won the 2014 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for its discovery.
Eikon has bolstered its team with Perlmutter’s one-time colleagues at Merck. Along with Baynes, its leadership team includes former Merck executive Ben Thorner and its board includes ex-CEO Ken Frazier.