USA – Checkmate Pharmaceuticals, a Cambridge, MA-based clinical stage biotechnology company with a novel approach to cancer immunotherapy, completed an $85m Series C financing.
The round was led by Longitude Capital and Novo Holdings with participation from new investors Medixci, Omega Funds, Clough Capital Partners, Sectoral Asset Management and BrightEdge, the venture investment fund of the American Cancer Society and existing investors Sofinnova Investments, venBio Partners, F-Prime Capital, and Decheng Capital. The company intends to use the funds for the continued clinical development of CMP-001 in anti-PD-1 refractory melanoma as well as to pursue studies in additional indications, such as front-line melanoma and head and neck squamous cell carcinoma. In conjunction with the funding, Oren Isacoff, M.D., of Longitude Capital, and Nilesh Kumar, Ph.D., of Novo Ventures, will join Checkmate Pharmaceuticals’ Board of Directors. Led by Barry Labinger, CEO, Checkmate is a clinical stage biotechnology company pursuing a novel approach to specifically activating the innate arm of the immune system to recognize and ultimately destroy tumor cells in combination with other therapies. The company is leveraging its expertise and the vast body of knowledge in the field of CpG oligonucleotides to validate an approach designed to combine the ability of CpG DNA to activate an anti-tumor T cell response with checkpoint inhibition to overcome a tumor’s ability to mute the immune response. 10/06/2020
