" class="no-js "lang="en-US"> Dantari Debuts with $47 Million Series A to Advance Best-in-Class Targeted Medicines for Solid Tumors - Medtech Alert
Thursday, March 28, 2024

Dantari Debuts with $47 Million Series A to Advance Best-in-Class Targeted Medicines for Solid Tumors

Dantari, a clinical-stage biotechnology company developing best-in-class targeted therapeutics for the treatment of cancers and other diseases, has announced its emergence from stealth mode with $47 million Series A funding. The Series A financing was led by Westlake Village BioPartners and included participation from Corner Ventures, Alexandria Venture Investments, and Caltech. The Company also announced the appointment of Richard A. Markus, M.D., Ph.D., as president and chief executive officer (CEO), and its board of directors, chaired by Sean Harper, M.D., a co-founding managing director at Westlake.

Proceeds from the funding support the advancement of Dantari and its differentiated antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) and chemotherapeutic platforms. Dantari’s platform of T-HDC (Targeted High-capacity Drug Conjugate) technology enables a significantly higher drug-antibody ratio (DAR) and tunable-release of chemotherapy compared to today’s ADCs. The Company’s next-generation targeted therapeutics can deliver larger payloads with a DAR of 60 for greater efficacy, and their biodistribution reduces bone marrow exposure, providing broad therapeutic potential.

The company’s lead clinical investigational product is DAN-222, a novel HDC chemotherapeutic agent with a topoisomerase 1 inhibitor payload. The use of topo1 products is often limited due to bone marrow toxicity. Because of its low bone marrow exposure in preclinical models, DAN-222 has the potential to broaden indications and provide new utility as a combination therapy with PARP inhibitors and other agents. DAN-222 is being evaluated in a Phase 1/2 clinical trial for the treatment of metastatic human epidermal growth factor receptor (HER) 2-negative breast cancer. Early results from the dose-escalation portion of the study will be presented today in a poster session at the 2022 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium (SABCS). The study is ongoing and full results will be presented in a future scientific forum.

Dantari’s pipeline also includes several next-generation ADC programs leveraging the T-HDC platform. The Company’s next program, DAN-311 for HER2-positive and HER2-low breast cancer, is planned to enter the clinic in the second half of 2023. Dantari’s other T-HDC product candidates combining validated targets and payloads for a variety of solid tumors including prostate cancer are progressing through preclinical development.

“We are excited to announce Dantari’s launch and initial clinical data. Our vision is to deliver groundbreaking next-generation targeted high-capacity therapeutics with enhanced efficacy and safety,” said Dr. Markus. “DAN-222, our lead program in HER2-negative breast cancer, has significant commercial potential while also substantially de-risking our T-HDC platform technology. We look forward to sharing our dose-escalation data today at SABCS which demonstrate excellent translation from preclinical species into patients. We will continue to progress our pipeline as rapidly as possible, including advancing our lead T-HDC candidate DAN-311 in HER2-positive and HER2-low breast cancer into the clinic in 2023. We look forward to bringing much-needed new options to patients who have failed current therapies including traditional ADCs.”

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