FogPharma raises $145m to advance peptide platform and portfolio

FogPharma, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical firm focused on delivering therapies using its Helicon peptide platform, said it will use its Series E funding to progress the ongoing clinical development of FOG-001, an intracellular TCF-blocking β-catenin inhibitor currently in Phase I/II study for solid tumors.

The candidate is a Helicon and has been designed to stop the key oncogenic step in the Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway, which is one of the most common activated pathways in a range of cancers. The company said despite there being significant biological validation of the β-catenin:TCF interaction as a cancer catalyst, there are no existing treatments available.

“Millions of colorectal cancer patients have been told by their oncologists that no more can be done for them. We believe FOG-001 may represent the long-awaited major technological breakthrough needed to address one of the most common yet unaddressed oncogenic signaling pathways,” said Mathai Mammen, FogPharma’s CEO.

“This financing will allow us to execute on our expanded clinical development and commercialization strategy to deliver FOG-001 to patients, while simultaneously strengthening our discovery efforts against other compelling intracellular targets that drive a range of diseases.”

Additionally, the firm will use the funding to advance the development of its portfolio, discovery programs, data science capabilities, and its Helicon therapeutics platform. According to FogPharma, the platform uses ultra-diverse and tunable stabilized helical peptides with custom-made computational physics and artificial intelligence (AI) to support the discovery and advancement of programs across a wide range of intracellular targets that the company said, “have never before been drugged.”

The financing round was led by Nextech Invest with involvement from other investors including Rock Springs Capital, Marshall Wace, Samara Biocapital, RA Capital Management, General Catalyst, Foresite Capital, Sixty Degree Capital, Catalio, Symbiosis, and the former CEO of Johnson & Johnson, Alex Gorsky.

“We are excited by the tremendous potential of FOG-001 to meaningfully change the therapeutic landscape through a novel approach and are equally impressed by FogPharma’s robust pipeline of programs for significant drivers of cancer,” said Nextech managing partner Thilo Schroeder.

“The company’s rapid progress across its growing pipeline demonstrates FogPharma’s team is enabled to deliver on the vast potential of its Helicon therapeutics platform.”