| A new European biotech has put together a nearly $100 million Series A, and its lead program is going after a target recently validated by the FDA. Emergence Therapeutics raised €87 million in its first big raise Tuesday, good for roughly $97.8 million, coming out of stealth with a plan to tackle antibody-drug conjugates. The first program up is setting its sights on nectin-4, the target for Astellas and Seagen’s Padcev drug, which gained full FDA approval for urothelial cancers this past summer. CEO Jack Elands said the company got its start after working with researchers at the University of Marseille Cancer Research Center to develop the lead candidate. “We started thinking about what we actually need to do in order to outperform Padcev, because we didn't want to just blindly develop , we really wanted to develop something that was markedly better,” Elands told Endpoints News. He added: “We're now in a phase where we just have to execute rapidly and with high quality, and the ability to raise this Series A is going to enable us to do that.” The program in question is known as ETx-22, and Emergence is pinning its high hopes here. By sharpening the message that researchers want to tackle nectin-4, Elands is all but declaring his company can develop a Padcev successor. There are scant hard data to go on so far, as Emergence has only conducted preclinical work for the candidate to this point. The biotech is predicting, however, ETx-22 will prove less toxic than other nectin-4 ADCs, allowing for higher dosing and greater efficacy. |