Singapore cancer treatment start-up gets $126m Series A
Singapore’s Tessa Therapeutics, a biotech developer with a Hodgkin's lymphoma treatment in phase-two trials, has raised a USD 126m Series A round led by US healthcare specialist Polaris Partners.
Temasek Holdings, EDBI, Heliconia Capital, and Heritas Capital also participated. All four of these investors were part of a USD 80m seed round in 2017 that also included Hong Kong and Sydney-based healthcare investor Karst Peak Capital.
Tessa will use the Series A proceeds to advance the clinical development of its Hodgkin’s program. This involves collecting blood cells using an automated separation process and reengineering them as cancer-fighting agents that can be reintroduced into the bloodstream.
Treatments based on a related approach – where patients use cells from a healthy person’s blood rather than their own – are also in development. Testing for Tessa’s leading product using this technique demonstrated a favourable safety profile and signs of efficacy with clinical responses observed in seven out of nine patients. Four patients saw their tumours disappear completely.
“Tessa is at an exciting point with two differentiated clinical-stage programs pursuing novel approaches for the treatment of CD30-positive lymphomas,” said Amy Schulman, a managing partner at Polaris, referring to a protein in lymphomas that can be targeted by the modified blood cells.
Schulman and Darren Carroll, another managing partner at Polaris, will join the Tessa board. Schulman previously served as president of Pfizer Nutrition and was instrumental in its sale to Nestle for USD 11.8bn in 2012. Carroll founded biotech-focused Lilly Ventures in 2002 and Lilly Asia Ventures in 2008.
EDBI is the investment arm of the Singapore Economic Development Board. Heliconia is a subsidiary of Temasek that co-invests alongside other private equity investors and runs fund-of-funds. Heritas is a private equity firm sponsored by Singapore-based industrial conglomerate IMC Group.
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