Dive Brief:

• Tubulis, a German biotechnology startup developing antibody-drug conjugates, brought in €128 million, or about $140 million, to bring its first prospects into clinical testing. 
• The startup, which is backed by more than a dozen investors, uses a suite of technologies to fine-tune each component of the complex medicines. Its two most advanced drugs, each of which target proteins overexpressed on solid tumors, should start human trials this year.  
• The financing, co-led by EQT Life Sciences and Nextech Invest, will also support the company’s plans to expand into the U.S. with a new subsidiary. Tubulis didn’t say where it’ll be located, however. 

Dive Insight:

Antibody-drug conjugates, which chemically link a tumor-killing toxin to a targeting molecule, have been the subject of scientific research for decades, offering the promise of a precise attack on cancer while sparing healthy tissue. But after years of ups and downs, investments in the technology have recently taken off, catalyzed by technical advances, a wave of drug approvals and multiple large buyouts. 

Tubulis has been among the beneficiaries of the surging interest. The company raised a €60 million Series B round in 2022 and, the following year, formed partnerships with Bristol Myers Squibb and Swiss biotech Oncoteq. Along the way, Tubulis built a pipeline with four publicly disclosed drug prospects, two of which are on the verge of clinical testing. It’s now added a funding more than double the size of its previous haul. 

"We really wanted to use the momentum in the ADC space to position Tubulis as strong as possible,” co-founder and CEO Dominik Schumacher, in an interview. 

The funds are supporting a platform the company claims can overcome some of the existing limitations of ADC technology by tailoring each part of the drug — the targeting antibody, the chemical linker and the toxin — to the specific cancer it’s trying to treat. “We think it’s important to have flexibility in designing ADCs,” he said.

The company’s first attempt at proving that is a pair of ADCs that aimed at targets the drug industry has struggled with. One candidate homes in on a protein called NaPi2b that is implicated in ovarian and lung cancer. The other seeks out 5T4, which is expressed in many different cancers. Despite showing early promise, other companies developing ADCs for those targets haven’t been successful. 

"What these clinical trials taught us for this target is that the biology works, that you can achieve target-dependent efficacy," Schumacher said.

Tubulis will present preclinical data for both prospects at the American Association for Cancer Research’s annual meeting in April. Schumacher said the funding could potentially put one of those drugs through Phase 1 and Phase 2 trials.

The financing is a Series B2 round backed by a wide range of investors including Frazier Life Sciences, Deep Track Capital, Andera Partners and fellow German biotech Evotec, among others.