- Tango Therapeutics, a biotech company focused on discovering and delivering the next generation of targeted cancer therapies, announced it raised $60 million
Tango Therapeutics — a biotech company focused on discovering and delivering the next generation of targeted cancer therapies — announced the closing of an oversubscribed Series B financing of $60 million led by Boxer Capital of the Tavistock Group. Cormorant Asset Management and Casdin Capital are also additional new investors in the round.
Tango Therapeutics is dedicated to discovering novel drug targets and delivering the next generation of targeted therapies to people with cancer. The company uses an approach that starts and ends with patients.
And Tango utilizes the genetic principle of synthetic lethality to discover and develop therapies that take aim at driver genes in cancer. The company is focused on 3 core areas: counteracting tumor suppressor gene loss, reversing the ability of cancer cells to evade the immune system, and identifying novel combinations that will be more effective than single-agent therapy.
Tango had launched in 2017 with a $55 million Series A investment from Third Rock Ventures and announced a strategic collaboration with Gilead Sciences in November 2018 with a $50 million upfront payment.
The company also announced several leadership appointments including Daniella Beckman as Chief Financial Officer, John C. Ross as Vice President of Human Resources and Samy Tadros as Vice President of Business Development.
Daniella Beckman, CPA, has over 20 years of strategic, financial and operational experience. And Beckman will be overseeing finance, investor relations and business development. She served as interim Chief Financial Officer for Tango since its inception. And she worked in the same role at other early-stage biotechnology companies, including Neon Therapeutics. Previously, Ms. Beckman was the Chief Financial Officer of Idenix Pharmaceuticals where she oversaw finance, investor relations and IT until it was acquired by Merck in 2014.
Samy Tadros, MS, MBA, is joining Tango from Celgene (recently acquired by Bristol Myers Squibb) where he served as Executive Director, Business Development and Global Alliances. Tadros spent over ten years at Celgene, leading multiple cross-functional teams and closing many important transactions for Celgene. Tadros’ transactions spanned the spectrum from early research agreements to late stage development and commercialization deals. Before joining Celgene, Tadros worked at Charles River Labs and Schering-Plough.
John C. Ross, MS, MHRIR, is joining Tango after serving as senior director of human resources for the surgical medical device business at Alcon (formerly a division of Novartis). Ross helped to facilitate the company’s spinoff from Novartis in 2019. And before Alcon, he served in multiple human resources leadership roles in Novartis Oncology and Novartis General Medicines in the U.S. and Europe. Ross also has held HR leadership roles at Google and Honeywell.
Key Quotes:
“We are very fortunate to have the support of this strong syndicate of cross-over investors as we bring our first targeted therapies based on the genetic concept of synthetic lethality to well-defined patient populations. This financing will support our lead program into IND-enabling studies early next year as well as multiple other ongoing target and drug discovery efforts.”
“We’re thrilled Daniella has agreed to join our team as CFO and to welcome John and Samy into these key leadership roles. Insights from all three industry leaders will be invaluable as we advance our pipeline of next-generation targeted cancer therapies and bring novel therapies to patients.”
-Barbara Weber, MD, President and Chief Executive Officer of Tango
