Frontier Medicines Announces Series C Funding to Advance Development of Next Generation KRAS Blocker

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Frontier Medicines announced that it has officially completed an oversubscribed $80 million Series C financing round. The funding, which was co-led by Deerfield Management Company and Droia Ventures, with additional funding provided by Galapagos NV and additional investors, resulted in the company achieving a total $235.5 million in program funds. According to a company press release, the money will be used to advance multiple programs into clinical studies, including their lead candidate, FMC-376, which targets KRASG12C cancers.

Yesterday, Frontier announced that it has launched Phase I/II PROSPER clinical trial for FMC-376, with the first patient dosed. The open-label, multi-center, dose escalation and expansion study is designed to evaluate the safety, tolerability, pharmacokinetics, and efficacy of FMC-376 in participants with locally advanced unresectable or metastatic solid tumors that bear the KRASG12C mutation.¹

“Today we mark the first participant dosed with a therapeutic candidate born from the Frontier Platform, alongside a financing that affirms continued strong investor support. Frontier Medicines has amassed a robust data set that shows FMC-376 is expected to overcome the resistance seen with prior generation single-acting inhibitors, and we are excited to demonstrate this potential in the clinical setting,” said Chris Varma, PhD, chairman, CEO, co-founder, Frontier Medicines, in the press release. “This represents a major milestone for the Frontier team in our mission to deliver transformational medicines for patients in need. We look forward to further progress on our pipeline of wholly-owned precision medicine programs later this year.”

In 2021, Frontier announced the close of its Series B funding with a total of $88.5 billion. The financing, which was led by Woodline Partners LP and RA Capital Management, included equal participation by Deerfield Management Company, was also used for advancing the company’s oncology pipeline, including KRASG12C.²

“The ability to target both forms of KRASG12C, which includes the active and inactive states of the protein, with a small molecule therapy would be a long-awaited scientific breakthrough,” said Frank McCormick, PhD, FRS, professor, UCSF Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center, in a press release. “Importantly for patients, a drug with this dual inhibition may be more efficacious than a drug that targets just the inactive form of KRASG12C by addressing the large majority of patients who are non-responders to first generation single-form KRASG12C inhibitors, as well as those patients whose tumors become resistant to the first-generation molecules.”

Frontier first launched in 2019 with the closing of its Series A funding, resulting in a gain of $67 million.3 The company announced that they are seeking to unlock the proteome to advance transformational therapies against otherwise undruggable disease-causing targets.¹

“Our therapeutic programs are focused on several of the most important and difficult targets in cancer,” said Varma, in a 2019 press release. “With our platform, we have the ability to address previously inaccessible disease-causing proteins. While we are taking on a considerable challenge, we believe this approach will have a tremendous impact on transforming patients’ lives for the better, which is our ultimate goal.”

References

1. Frontier Medicines Announces Oversubscribed $80 Million Series C Financing to Support Progress of Clinical-Stage Pipeline. Frontier Medicines. February 22, 2023. Accessed February 23, 2024. https://www.frontiermeds.com/newsroom/press-releases/frontier-medicines-announces-oversubscribed-80-million-series-c-financing

2. Frontier Medicines Raises $88.5 Million Series B Financing to Advance Precision Oncology and Targeted Protein Degradation Pipeline. Frontier Medicines. July 19, 2021. Accessed February 23, 2024. https://www.frontiermeds.com/newsroom/press-releases/frontier-medicines-raises-885-million-series-b-financing-advance

3. Frontier Medicines Launches with $67 Million to Develop Novel Medicines that Drug the “Undruggable” Targets Driving Human Disease. Frontier Medicines. June 25, 2019. Accessed February 23, 2024. https://www.frontiermeds.com/newsroom/press-releases/frontier-medicines-launches-67-million-develop-novel-medicines-drug