An­oth­er ADC biotech reels in big bucks as Mark Alles’ TORL nabs $158M

Mark Alles has quick­ly put to­geth­er a megaround for his lat­est ven­ture, and it’s for the most sought-af­ter pock­et of on­col­o­gy R&D: an­ti­body-drug con­ju­gates.

The for­mer Cel­gene CEO be­came chief ex­ec­u­tive of TORL Bio­Ther­a­peu­tics three months ago, and on Wednes­day the com­pa­ny un­veiled a $158 mil­lion Se­ries B-2.

The five-year-old Los An­ge­les start­up is among a ris­ing co­hort of drug de­vel­op­ers at­tempt­ing to cre­ate the next gen­er­a­tion of AD­Cs, an it­er­at­ed form of chemother­a­py that aims to re­duce tox­i­c­i­ty, en­hance ef­fi­ca­cy and spare healthy cells. Near­ly every ma­jor drug­mak­er has bought its way in­to the space in the past few years, if they weren’t in it al­ready.

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