Xencor raises $45M in private placing

Xencor, a California, USA-based company developing protein and antibody therapeutics, say that it has raised $45.0 million in a private financing led by MedImmune Ventures and including new investors Novo Nordisk and HealthCare Ventures as well as existing investor Zen Investments. This includes an initial $6.0 million bridge financing that the company announced in July, and will be used to advance the clinical development of two biologic drug compounds, a first-in-class protein therapeutic and a novel antibody drug candidate. Both were developed using the company's Protein Design Automation (PDA) technologies. To date, Xencor has raised $130.0 million.

Bassil Dahiyat, chief executive of Xencor, said: "this financing will allow us to continue to independently advance our pipeline and to maximize our ability to strategically partner our antibody technologies with pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies."

Xencor expects to advance its first drug candidate, XPro1595, into clinical development this year for the treatment of inflammatory conditions. XPro1595 is a dominant negative inhibitor of tumor necrosis factor that the company designed using its PDA technologies to act through a new, uniquely selective molecular mechanism of action. The inhibition of TNFa has been clinically proven to be an effective treatment for rheumatoid arthritis and other inflammatory diseases, and annual sales of TNF blockers currently exceed $8.5 billion, the firm noted.