A lit­tle over two years since its last raise, New York-based biotech Hi­ber­Cell is re­turn­ing to the ven­ture well for some more cap­i­tal.

The com­pa­ny has pulled in a new $67.4 mil­lion Se­ries B, Hi­ber­Cell an­nounced Wednes­day morn­ing, as it con­tin­ues its trek to de­vel­op drugs pre­vent­ing can­cer re­lapse and metas­ta­sis. Wednes­day’s funds will be used to ad­vance its pro­grams re­search­ing how stress bi­ol­o­gy and in­nate im­mu­ni­ty can play a role in can­cer re­cur­rence.

In ad­di­tion to the Se­ries B, Hi­ber­Cell con­cur­rent­ly se­cured a $30 mil­lion debt fa­cil­i­ty with Her­cules Cap­i­tal.

Hi­ber­Cell’s foun­da­tion comes from the lab work of Julio Aguirre-Ghiso at Mount Sinai, cen­tered around the no­tion that “dor­mant” dis­sem­i­nat­ed tu­mor cells — or DTCs — can re­ac­ti­vate long af­ter drugs have flushed all ap­pear­ances of can­cer. The the­o­ry goes that this re­sponse can lead to a metasta­t­ic can­cer with a near-cer­tain fa­tal­i­ty rate.

Though this no­tion isn’t par­tic­u­lar­ly new, Aguirre-Ghiso’s lab made some im­por­tant break­throughs re­gard­ing the bi­ol­o­gy of dis­sem­i­na­tion, co-founder and CEO Alan Rig­by said in an in­ter­view af­ter Hi­ber­Cell’s Se­ries A back in Feb­ru­ary 2019.

It may al­so ring a bell to some ob­servers in the field, as oth­er biotechs re­search­ing senes­cent cells have sim­i­lar ob­jec­tives, Rig­by told End­points News on Wednes­day. Dor­mant DTCs and senes­cent cells are es­sen­tial­ly the same thing, Rig­by said, and Hi­ber­Cell’s ul­ti­mate goal is to con­nect the un­der­ly­ing bi­ol­o­gy of these cells with clin­i­cal out­comes for pa­tients.

“These are the cells that cre­ate and ex­tend the win­dow of clin­i­cal dor­man­cy,” Rig­by told End­points. “It’s how some pa­tients with breast can­cer have the abil­i­ty to be fine for 20 years and then it comes back … we be­lieve they’re in­stru­men­tal in metasta­t­ic re­cur­rence.”

Two years af­ter the Se­ries A, Hi­ber­Cell’s pipeline now sits at three can­di­dates: one tu­mor mi­croen­vi­ron­ment mod­u­la­tor and two adap­tive stress mod­u­la­tors. The pro­gram far­thest along falls in that for­mer cat­e­go­ry, one that Hi­ber­Cell ac­quired last June. Known as Im­prime PGG, the can­di­date is be­ing stud­ied in com­bi­na­tion with Keytru­da for re­sectable melanoma and metasta­t­ic breast can­cer.

A Phase II study look­ing at treat­ment-naïve, re­sectable stage III melanoma is ex­pect­ed to launch right around when Q2 ends, Rig­by said. There’s al­so a Phase II tri­al for metasta­t­ic breast can­cer fol­low­ing HR fail­ure planned for some­time in the third quar­ter, he added.

Even though this can­di­date has on­ly re­cent­ly joined the Hi­ber­Cell pipeline, Rig­by be­lieves it can be in­stru­men­tal in mov­ing its oth­er in­ter­nal pro­grams along thanks to its “1-2 punch” in im­prov­ing sur­vival ad­van­tages and pro­mot­ing im­muno­sup­pres­sion. Those two can­di­dates, adap­tive stress mod­u­la­tors, are still in the ear­ly stages.

First up is their PERK in­hibitor for re­nal cell car­ci­no­ma and gas­tric can­cer, which re­cent­ly launched a Phase Ia safe­ty study. Then there’s an ISR mod­u­la­tor geared up for the gen­er­al “sol­id and liq­uid tu­mor” cat­e­go­ry, which is on track for a third quar­ter IND ap­pli­ca­tion.

As the whole field moves for­ward, there may be a time where non-metasta­t­ic can­cer pa­tients end up need­ing drugs like Hi­ber­Cell’s as a main­te­nance ther­a­py to pre­vent re­cur­rence af­ter their first bout with the dis­ease ends up in re­mis­sion, Rig­by said. But right now it’s still too ear­ly for any­one to say how long that might take.

“It’s up to us and oth­ers to ul­ti­mate­ly con­nect this unique bi­ol­o­gy to can­cer es­cape,” Rig­by said.

Wednes­day’s round in­clud­ed new in­vestors Huizen­ga, Monashee, Tekla, Her­cules Cap­i­tal, Mount Sinai In­no­va­tion Part­ners and oth­er undis­closed in­vestors. Re­turn­ing in­vestors, in­clud­ing ARCH, Mag­net­ic Ven­tures, Bris­tol My­ers Squibb, Trini­tas Cap­i­tal and oth­ers from the Se­ries A syn­di­cate al­so par­tic­i­pat­ed.

89bio said its drug was better than placebo at lessening fibrosis without worsening nonalcoholic steatohepatitis, or NASH, in two of three dose groups.

The San Francisco biotech said it thinks the Phase IIb data pave the way for a potential Phase III, following in the footsteps of another biotech in its drug class, Akero Therapeutics. To fund a late-stage study, CEO Rohan Palekar told Endpoints News 89bio “would need to raise additional capital,” with the company having about $188 million at the end of last year.