Blueprint raises $50 million in series C
Blueprint Medicines (Cambridge, Mass.) raised $50 million in an untranched series C round led by new investor Partner Fund Management. Other new investors included Wellington Management; RA Capital; Tavistock Life Sciences; Perceptive Advisors; Sabby Capital; Cowen Investments; and Redmile Group. Existing investors Biotech Value Fund; Casdin Capital; Fidelity Biosciences; Nextech Invest; and Third Rock Ventures also participated.
The company expects to begin clinical trials of its two lead programs in 2015. It plans to perform two studies of BLU-285, an inhibitor of stem cell factor ( SCF) receptor tyrosine kinase (c-Kit; KIT; CD117) that is selective for exon 17 mutations: one in patients with systemic mastocytosis and another in a genomically defined subset of patients with gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GISTs). It also will study BLU-554, a selective inhibitor of fibroblast growth factor (FGF) receptor 4 ( FGFR4; CD334), to treat hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) patients with aberrant FGFR4 pathway activation. ...