Accent Therapeutics have announced the closing of a $75 million Series C financing.
The financing was led by Mirae Asset Capital Life Science, with participation from other new investors, Bristol Myers Squibb and Johnson & Johnson Innovation – JJDC, Inc. as well as all existing investors, including The Column Group, Atlas Venture, Droia Ventures, GV, EcoR1 Capital, AbbVie Ventures, The Mark Foundation for Cancer Research, Timefolio Capital (formerly known as NS Investment) and others. In conjunction with the financing, Naveen Krishnan, MD, MPhil, Managing Director of Mirae Asset Capital Life Science will join the company’s Board of Directors.
Proceeds from the financing will be used to support the advancement of both lead programs – Accent’s first-in-class DHX9 inhibitor and a potentially best-in-class KIF18A inhibitor – through early clinical development including safety, pharmacokinetics and early efficacy studies.
“We are delighted to announce the backing of an exceptional investor syndicate who share our commitment to advancing innovative therapies for patients with cancer,” said Shakti Narayan, PhD, JD, CEO of Accent Therapeutics. “These additional resources position us well to file INDs this year for both our DXH9 and KIF18A programs, and to rapidly progress them through early clinical development.”
Accent is developing therapeutics for both novel and known, but suboptimally-addressed, high- impact oncology targets with the potential to benefit large patient populations. The company’s DHX9 inhibitor seeks to address indications with high unmet need, including BRCA loss of function cancers (breast, ovarian), mismatch repair deficient (dMMR) or microsatellite instability-high (MSI-H) cancers (colorectal, endometrial, gastric) and additional undisclosed cancer types. Accent’s second lead program, a KIF18A inhibitor, could also potentially benefit a large patient population across several cancer indications with high unmet need, including ovarian cancer and triple negative breast cancer (TNBC).
“Accent’s focus on targeting cancer cell vulnerabilities in a specific and robust way really stood out as we were evaluating companies for our first investment, ” remarked Naveen Krishnan, MD, MPhil, of Mirae Asset Capital Life Science. “They have assembled an incredible team with a successful track record of drug development, and we are excited to partner with the other seasoned investors to support Accent at this pivotal time.”
