INVESTMENT TO FUND RAPID EXPANSION IN TRANSLATIONAL PLATFORM TECHNOLOGIES FOR ONCOLOGY AND METABOLIC DISEASES
Santa Clara, CA (May 15, 2014) – Crown Bioscience, Inc., a leading global drug discovery and development service company, has announced receiving investment of $26.55 million in series D funding led by Lilly Asia Ventures Fund II L.P. The investment will be used to fund rapid expansion plans for their translational platform technologies in oncology and metabolic diseases, which allow drug development companies to make quicker and better-informed decisions on clinical drug candidates.
The investment, which closed on 25th April, will provide Crown with the ability to expand its technologies, including the HuPrime®, HuKemia®, HuBase™, HuMark™, HuTrial™ and HuSignature™ platforms, whose unique lead optimization and translational strategies support the delivery of superior clinical candidates for partners.
Dr Jean-Pierre Wery, President of Crown Bioscience, said; “The investment will allow us to expand our drug development services in oncology and metabolic disease to meet the demand and interest our technologies have generated through dramatically improving the clinical success of promising clinical candidates. Together with this, the investment will be used to actively pursue potential acquisition opportunities to further enhance our market leading position. By expanding our translational platforms, we can offer partners the ability to test their drug candidates on a greater range of unique models, providing them with even better decision making potential before moving into clinical trials. Our patient-derived xenograph model (PDX) collection, HuPrime®, is now over 1,000 models in size, and this funding will accelerate the pace at which we can expand the collection.”
Crown’s HuPrime PDX model collection is currently the largest collection of unique tumor xenograft models in the world, with many kept in live passage in order to support rapid HuTrialTM, human surrogate clinical trial studies. By expanding the HuPrime collection further, the HuTrial platform will be able to improve choice when selecting clinically relevant models to more accurately predict the efficacy of potential drug candidates before advancing the candidate into the clinic. HuTrials help significantly reduce development costs by ensuring that the most effective treatments progress through trials and go on to improve patient outcomes in the clinic.
For further information about Crown Bioscience visit the website at:http://www.crownbio.com/
About Crown Bioscience Inc.
Founded in 2006, Crown Bioscience is a premier drug discovery and development service company providing cutting-edge translational platforms and cost effective drug discovery solutions for its biotech and pharmaceutical partners in dedicated therapeutic areas: Oncology and Metabolic Disease. Our proprietary HuPrime®, HuKemia®, HuBase™, HuMark™, HuTrial™ and HuSignature™ platforms enable unique lead optimization and translational strategies to deliver superior clinical candidates. Headquartered in Santa Clara California, Crown Bioscience has operations in China (Beijing and Jiangsu Taicang), United Kingdom (Precos, Ltd. In Nottingham) and the USA (NC) with business offices in Boston, Princeton, RTP, Phoenix, Milan and Shanghai. For more information, please visit http://www.crownbio.com
For further press information please contact: David Bertram – The Scott Partnership, 1 Whiteside, Station Road, Holmes Chapel, Cheshire, CW4 8AA, United Kingdom. Tel: + 44 1477 539 539 Fax: +44 1477 539 540 E-mail: crown@scottpr.com