New French and Chinese investment has helped Crescendo Biologics in Cambridge raise $70 million in Series B financing – the largest disclosed Series B in Europe so far in 2018.

French investor Andera Partners and Chinese backer Yuan Capital came fresh to the party.

The funds will be used to advance the development of Crescendo’s lead programme, CB307, which stimulates local activation of tumour-specific T-cells, into the clinic and further expand its internal pipeline of products.

Crescendo is developing potent, multi-functional Humabody® therapeutics in oncology. It is pursuing novel Humabody®-based product opportunities through in-house development and strategic partnerships. To date, it has a collaboration with Takeda Pharma worth up to $790m.

The Series B round was led by Andera Partners (formerly Edmond de Rothschild Investment Partners) with Europe’s largest life science fund Biodiscovery V, and joined by Quan Capital with its leading life sciences fund, Quan Venture Fund I, and Crescendo’s existing investors Sofinnova Partners, IP Group, EMBL and Takeda Ventures. 

Gilles Nobécourt, partner at Andera Partners and lead investor said: “We have been very impressed with the high quality of the novel biology behind multi-functional Humabodies and Crescendo’s growing development portfolio. Crescendo is a true pioneer in the development of targeted T-cell engagement and we are looking forward to working with the team.”

Marietta Wu, managing director of Quan Capital which invested a significant amount in the round, explained: “We have been especially drawn to the Humabody® platform that offers multiple potential advantages over the current antibody (IgG) approaches and could enable the company to quickly build a substantial portfolio of impactful therapeutics. 

“We look forward to joining our partners to rapidly advance Crescendo’s portfolio into clinical development where we can improve patient lives.”
Peter Pack, CEO of Crescendo, explained the long-term potential for the UK pioneer’s technology.

He said: “We appreciate the strong support – past and present – from our current investors, who have enabled us to grow the business to this point. In this round we are also welcoming two new investors, Andera Partners and Quan Capital. We look forward to taking our lead programme, CB307 into the clinic and further exploit our technology platform with new products.”