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Forma Therapeutics has closed on a Series B financing that raised a total of $25.5 million. The round was led by new investor Lilly Ventures. Lilly was joined by existing investors Novartis Option Fund and Bio*One Capital of Singapore. Lexington-based Cubist Pharmaceutical, Inc. also joined as a new equity investor through a conversion of a previously issued note.
Steve Hall, a venture partner at Lilly Ventures, will join Forma’s board of directors. The Cambridge-based company has a drug discovery technology platform designed to help develop new drug targets for cancer and other diseases.
“With this new funding, Forma will focus on advancing our internal target-based oncology programs and in parallel, we will continue to pursue non-dilutive collaborations to further build our integrated drug discovery platform,” said Steven Tregay, CEO of Forma, in a statement.
More about Forma Therapeutics
Forma, which was founded in May of 2007, first announced a $25 million dollar series A financing round in January of 2009, followed a week later by a $200 million deal with the Novartis Option Fund, which gave the company its first $4 million in funding to launch.
Also in January, Forma entered a three-year collaboration agreement with Cubist Pharmaceuticals Inc. in which Cubist developed antibacterial compounds discovered by Forma. The deal calls for Forma to receive $14 million in upfront payments, delivery and research funding and equity; If Cubist pursues commercialization of the compounds, the deal could garner Forma another $54 million in milestones and royalties.
In July, Forma formed partnerships with The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society to move the health agency’s research products toward development quickly, and with Novartis AG to use Forma’s cell-based screening platform to discover inhibitors for undisclosed protein-protein interaction targets to help develop cancer drugs.
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