Chasing the KRAS field, Quanta Therapeutics bags $50M for two 2024 clinical trials

Quanta Therapeutics will bring its KRAS inhibitors into the clinic next year with a fresh heap of $50.7 million from blue-chip investors as it looks to catch up to the KRAS leaders and take the difficult class into other mutations and broader areas of oncology.

While two KRAS inhibitors are on the market, Amgen’s Lumakras and Mirati’s Krazati, researchers and drugmakers still see plenty of room for next-generation drugs with fewer liver toxicities, expansion into other mutations and avoidance of resistance to the inhibitors.

In steps, California and Pennsylvania biotech Quanta will enter the clinic in the first quarter of 2024 with a multi-KRAS candidate and a quarter after that with a G12D program. Both QTX3034 and QTX3046 are expected to be oral therapeutics. Leading the medical operations is Leonardo Faoro, who joined as medical chief last fall following an early clinical development leadership role at Exelixis.

Mirati, Affini-T and others are also tackling G12D, with the latter saying its cell therapy approach helped eradicate the tumor in mouse models, and Quanta said its preclinical studies also showed “potent anti-tumor activity” in presentations at the American Association for Cancer Research confab last month. Others, like recently revealed Aethon Therapeutics, hope to test antibodies in combination with KRAS drugs.

Perry Nisen

Prior to the Series D, Quanta had disclosed a $60 million Series C in October 2021. Bankrollers include Avidity Partners, Sofinnova Investments, Vida Ventures, Citadel’s Surveyor Capital, AbbVie Ventures, Longitude Capital, BVF Partners, Cooley’s partner fund GC&H Investments and Wilson Sonsini’s venture arm WS Investment Company.

The new financing will help Quanta figure out whether its initial programs work, CEO Perry Nisen said in a press release. The startup has now raised $142 million since its 2018 founding.

Proceeds will also funnel into other areas of Quanta’s small molecule pipeline, which includes a RAF1 discovery-stage program and other work on undisclosed targets that could form the basis for combination candidates with the biotech’s lead assets, it said.

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