YALE CANCER RESEARCH SPIN-OFF COMPLETES $65M FUNDING ROUND

A Boston-based biotech company that has its drug development facilities at Yale University’s West Campus has completed a $65 million financing round that it will use to advance at least two cancer drug candidates into clinical research settings.

Normunity will use the money developing drug candidates for the treatment of more common cancer types, like lung and skin cancers, said Dr. Lieping Chen, an immuno-oncology professor with the Yale School of Medicine, who is the company’s scientific founder.

“Our interest is in translating out discoveries into into drugs to treat cancers not being treated now by standard care, to help patients that are not responding to current care methods,” Chen said.

Dr. Rachel Humphrey, Normunity’s chief executive officer, said “right now, there are lots of immunotherapies that work well against certain cancer types.”

“But about 65 percent of patients don’t respond well to immunotherapy,” Humphrey said. “The biological targets being developed here are common to many cancers. The biology here is more broadly relevant.”

Chen said Normunity’s researchers “are finding previously hidden mechanisms of tumor-dependent immune disruption and we aim to usher in a new era of drug discovery for precision immuno-oncology with medicines that normalize immune function.”

The funding round was led by Westport-based Canaan Ventures, said Humphrey, who has 25 years of experience with a focus in oncology. Her background includes leading the development of the cancer immunotherapies for pharmaceutical giants Bristol Myers Squibb and AstraZenaca.

Normunity currently has about eight people working in the labs on Yale’s West Haven campus. Those employees work closely with Yale researchers who are part of the University’s medical school.

Humphrey declined to address how much of the money raised in the financing round might be used to hire additional researchers or how many people might be hired.

News of Normunity’s funding round comes as another Connecticut startup looking to develop cancer cures is also doing some fund raising. Westportbased Intensity Therapeutics was seeking to raise $10 million when it did an initial public offering of its stock on Friday.

De Manio Photoqraphy / Contributed photo A collaborative team from West Haven-based Normunity, from left, Christina Cho, a research associate at Yale School of Medicine; Bill LaRochelle, the company’s chief scientific officer; and Dr. Lieping Chen, leader of the Lieping Chen lab at Yale School of Medicine and scientific founder of Normunity.

Dr. Lieping Chen, of Yale School of Medicine, and Rachel Humphrey, CEO of Normunity, a Boston-based biotech company that has its research center in West Haven. Chen and Humphrey are shown at the company’s research labs, which are part of Yale’s West Campus.