BioCentury
ARTICLE | Finance

De-risking money

NEA adds $10M to Cleave's A round at same valuation to help achieve human POC

April 15, 2013 7:00 AM UTC

Cleave Bioscience Inc.'s investors allowed New Enterprise Associates to add $10 million last week on the same terms as a 2011 A round because the lion's share of money and de-risking is tied to human testing of its next generation proteasome pathway inhibitors, which is still at least 18 months away. The original investors committed $44 million in the tranched round.

Proteasome inhibition has proven to be an effective means for treating certain blood cancers. Velcade bortezomib from the Millennium Pharmaceuticals Inc. unit of Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd. (Tokyo:4502) and Kyprolis carfilzomib from Onyx Pharmaceuticals Inc. target the beta 5 subunit of the proteasome (PSMB5; LMPX)...