VC-backed Merus secures additional €31m

Ellie Pullen
03 October 2013

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Dutch biopharma company Merus has received a €31m extension of its 2010 series-B funding round from Johnson & Johnson Development Corporation (JJDC) and its existing venture capital backers.

Prior to the extension, Merus was backed by Novartis Venture Fund, Pfizer Venture Investments (PVI), Bay City Capital, Life Sciences Partners (LSP) and Aglaia Biomedical Ventures. All of the company's previous backers that took part in the first closing of the company's series-B round in 2010 invested additional funds alongside new backer JJDC in this extension.

The investment by JJDC and the existing consortium brings the total amount raised by Merus in its two-part series-B round to €47.6m. The funding has so far been used to further develop Merus's portfolio of products in the fields of oncology, inflammation and infectious diseases.

Following the series-B extension, the company plans on using the additional funds to expand its portfolio of pre-clinical programs for the treatment of cancer patients. Merus will also use the fresh capital to push some of its programs into phase I clinical testing.

The investment in Merus by JJDC was announced on 3 October at Johnson & Johnson's research and development event in London.

Previous funding
Merus raised €21.7m in January 2010 from a syndicate of investors comprising Novartis, PVI, Bay City, LSP and previous investor Aglaia. The latter had previously invested €300,000 of seed funding in the company in 2006 - both investments in Merus were done through its Aglaia Oncology Fund.

Company
Founded in 2006, Merus is headquartered in Utrecht and employs approximately 30 staff. The company is focused on developing human bispecific antibodies and single cell-derived combinations of antibodies for cancer therapy. Bispecific antibodies are artificial proteins comprising fragments of two monoclonal antibodies. They are most commonly used in cancer immunotherapy to target tumour cells.

The company's bispecific antibodies product, Biclonics, and single cell-derived combinations of antibodies, Oligoclonics, are both designed to destroy tumour cells by binding to targets associated with disease, such as the growth factor receptors expressed by tumour cells. A growth factor is a naturally-occurring substance that can play a part in the stimulation of cellular growth.

People
Ton Logtenberg is the CEO of Merus. Following the capital injection, a member of JJDC will join Merus's board of directors. Currently, the company's board of directors includes LSP partner John de Koning; Novartis managing director Florent Gros; Bay City investment partner Lionel Carnot; and Aglaia founder Mark Krul.