Years af­ter sell­ing Ac­er­ta to As­traZeneca for $7 bil­lion, large­ly on the promise of its BTK in­hibitor, Dave John­son has once again gath­ered hefty fi­nan­cial sup­port be­hind a new can­cer tar­get.

Dave John­son

Ma­trix Cap­i­tal Man­age­ment and Sur­vey­or Cap­i­tal are lead­ing a $137 mil­lion round for Velos­Bio, which has re­cent­ly be­gun a Phase I study for its lead an­ti­body-drug con­ju­gate tar­get­ed against ROR1. John­son took up the CEO post in Oc­to­ber 2018.

ROR1, or re­cep­tor ty­ro­sine ki­nase-like or­phan re­cep­tor 1, is a trans­mem­brane pro­tein ex­pressed in the ear­ly gen­e­sis of em­bryos. Re­searchers have posit­ed that it’s lever­aged by hema­to­log­i­cal and sol­id tu­mors that re­vert to “an em­bry­on­ic tran­scrip­tion­al pro­gram,” as high lev­els of ROR1 ex­pres­sion have been found in mul­ti­ple can­cers.

Aside from VLS-101, an ADC, Velos­Bio is al­so de­vel­op­ing bis­pecifics aimed at the tar­get.

“We have made tremen­dous progress since found­ing the com­pa­ny in 2017, and this fi­nanc­ing re­flects strong sup­port for our plat­form, peo­ple, and com­pre­hen­sive de­vel­op­ment strat­e­gy,” John­son said in a state­ment.

The new round pulled in a gi­ant group. Ar­ix Bio­science and Sofinno­va Ven­tures, co-lead­ers of the $58 mil­lion Se­ries A, re­turned with Decheng Cap­i­tal, Pap­pas Cap­i­tal and Take­da Ven­tures from that syn­di­cate.

New in­vestors in­clude Adage Cap­i­tal Man­age­ment, Cor­morant As­set Man­age­ment, Far­al­lon, Fore­site Cap­i­tal, Janus Hen­der­son In­vestors, Lo­gos Cap­i­tal, Or­biMed, funds and ac­counts ad­vised by T. Rowe Price As­so­ci­ates, Ven­rock Health­care Cap­i­tal Part­ners, Viking Glob­al In­vestors, and Welling­ton Man­age­ment Com­pa­ny.

The FDA’s Oncology Center of Excellence has been a bright spot within the agency in terms of speeding new treatments to patients. That flexibility was on full display this morning as FDA released new draft guidance spelling out exactly how oncology drug developers can fulfill both the accelerated and full approval’s requirements with just a single randomized controlled trial.

While Congress recently passed legislation that will allow FDA to require confirmatory trials to be recruiting and ongoing prior to granting an accelerated approval, the agency is now making clear that the initial trial used to win the AA, if designed appropriately, can also serve as the trial for converting the accelerated approval into a full approval.

Digital therapeutics company Better Therapeutics announced on Thursday that it’s cutting 35% of its staff as it awaits FDA clearance for its first product.

The company, which launched eight years ago, is one of a growing group of companies seeking a digital alternative to traditional medicine. The space saw a record $7.5 billion in investments in 2021, according to Chris Dokomajilar at DealForma, with uses spanning ADHD, PTSD and other indications. However, private insurers have been slow to hop on board.