Erasca, a US-based cancer treatment startup, has recently raised a total of US$200 million in its Series B round, which was led by Cormorant Asset Management and ARCH Venture Partners, the firm said on a statement released on Monday.
New investors in this round include Invus, Singapore government-linked entity, EDBI, and other strategic and private investors, Erasca stated. Existing investors such as Colt Ventures, City Hill Ventures, and LifeSci Venture Partners also participated in this Series B round.
The proceeds now bring the total capital raised to over US$260 million. The firm will use the funds to support the clinical development of oncology programs that looks promising as well as to advance an in-house drug-discovery.
In addition to that, the biotech company said that it collaborates with biopharmaceutical and academic organizations.
The managing director at ARCH Ventures Partners, Kristina Burow, said that Erasca has an impressive portfolio of assets, which include in-licensing several programs to address “significant unmet needs.”
Erasca did not disclose the type of cancers it targets. The firm uses a proprietary AI drug-discovery platform named Oncology Pattern Recognition Algorithm (OPRA) to speed up the drug discovery. OPRA examines strategies to shut down cancer pathways.
Singapore-based EDBI has made several bets on the Lifesciences space. Recently, it joined Vertex Ventures to participate in a Series B round that raised US$170M for US-based cell and gene therapy firm, ElevateBio.
The firm (EDBI) was also among the top investors in Doctor Anywhere, an online healthcare platform based in Singapore, which raised US$27 million in a Series B round.
Earlier this year, eko.ai, a Singapore-based AI-enabled Medtech startup, snapped a US$4 million financing, which was co-led by EDBI and Sequoia India.