Frontier Medicines – a precision medicine company seeking to unlock the proteome to advance transformational therapies against otherwise undruggable disease-causing targets – announced the closing of an oversubscribed $80 million Series C financing. The funding was co-led by Deerfield Management Company and Droia Ventures, with significant participation from Galapagos NV (Euronext & NASDAQ: GLPG) as a strategic investor and contributions from new and existing investors, including DCVC Bio, MPM Capital, and RA Capital Management. This Series C funding brings the total capital raised since Frontier’s founding to $235.5 million.
The financing proceeds will support the advancement of multiple wholly-owned pipeline programs into clinical studies, including FMC-376. And Frontier also announced the first participant dosed in the Phase 1/2 PROSPER clinical trial (NCT 06244771) evaluating FMC-376 in patients with KRASG12C cancers.
FMC-376 was discovered by applying the Frontier Platform to engage both ON+OFF KRASG12C with exquisite selectivity directly. The preclinical data featured at the AACR Annual Meeting 2023 demonstrate that FMC-376 is >1,000-fold more effective at blocking key effector protein interactions versus prior-generation single-acting inhibitors, leading to rapid and durable suppression of KRASG12C signaling. FMC-376 is an orally bioavailable small molecule that has shown efficacy in vivo across a broad array of KRASG12C mutant non-small cell lung (NSCLC), pancreatic, and colorectal cancer models, as well as models of NSCLC brain metastases, which is anticipated to drive enhanced efficacy and prolonged durability. The differentiated dual direct mechanism of action of FMC-376 offers the potential to overcome the lack of response and resistance seen with current KRASG12C single-acting treatments.
The Phase 1/2 PROSPER clinical trial is an open-label and multi-center dose escalation and expansion study designed to evaluate the safety, tolerability, pharmacokinetics, and efficacy of FMC-376 in participants with locally advanced unresectable or metastatic solid tumors that harbor the KRASG12C mutation.
KEY QUOTES:
“At Galapagos, we are focused on breakthrough science and innovation to address high unmet medical needs. Frontier Medicines is a leading chemoproteomics company with a unique technology platform and a pipeline of potential best-in-class assets that fit with Galapagos’ precision oncology R&D approach. The participation in Frontier Medicines’ Series C round aligns with our innovation acceleration strategy to bring transformational medicines to patients around the world.”
- Paul Stoffels, CEO and Chairman of the Board of Directors of Galapagos
“Today we mark the first participant dosed with a therapeutic candidate born from the Frontier Platform, alongside a financing that affirms continued strong investor support. Frontier Medicines has amassed a robust data set that shows FMC-376 is expected to overcome the resistance seen with prior generation single-acting inhibitors, and we are excited to demonstrate this potential in the clinical setting. This represents a major milestone for the Frontier team in our mission to deliver transformational medicines for patients in need. We look forward to further progress on our pipeline of wholly-owned precision medicine programs later this year.”
- Chris Varma, Ph.D., chairman, CEO, and co-founder of Frontier Medicines
