Series A Funding to Progress Drug Target Pipeline

Biopharmaceutical company PhoreMost dedicated to drugging ‘undruggable’ disease targets, has completed an £11m ($15m) Series-A investment round that will be used to expand operations on its Babraham Research Campus site and progress several novel drug targets from its next-generation “SITESEEKER®” phenotypic screening platform into first-in-class drug discovery programmes.

The new investment follows a successful validation phase, which saw PhoreMost grow from a Cambridge University spin-out in 2015 with early proof-of-concept data, to a technically and commercially validated enterprise in 2017. The company’s screening platform identifies the best new therapeutic targets for any chosen disease setting and how to develop novel drugs to them, thus potentially increasing the diversity and affordability of novel treatments for cancer and other unmet diseases.

This has enabled PhoreMost to build a proprietary novel target pipeline, sign two pharma collaboration deals and spin-out a new company ‘NeoPhore’ to progress a novel target for cancer immunotherapy into the small-molecule development stage. The funding will enable PhoreMost to expand the range and depth of other proprietary targets into the drug discovery process.

The Series-A round was led by current investors Jonathan Milner, Amadeus Capital Partners,Cambridge Enterprise and cornerstone Parkwalk Advisors, a London-based investor specialising in UK university generated IP. Morningside Ventures, a prolific backer of global biotech enterprises, is the principal new investor, with Dr Gerald Chan from Morningside joining the PhoreMost Board. Alastair Kilgour of Parkwalk also joins the Board.

Dr Chris Torrance CEO of PhoreMost, said: “We are thrilled to have the support of our existing investors and Morningside in enabling PhoreMost to move into its next exciting phase of growth. Their funding and shared vision is a key part of PhoreMost becoming a fully-fledged ‘ethical’ drug discovery company that aims to bring a greater diversity of therapies to patients, more quickly and at prices they can afford.”

Dr Jonathan Milner, Chairman of PhoreMost, said: “PhoreMost is now working with pharma and biotech partners in drug discovery, applying its SITESEEKER platform to identify cryptic druggable sites, which would otherwise be impossible to find and has the potential to significantly increase the diversity and affordability of novel therapeutics for cancer and other unmet diseases. This investment will fund the next phase of PhoreMost’s development and I would like to welcome new investors Morningside, joining at this exciting time.”