8 January 2021 - - US-based biopharmaceutical company DiCE Molecules has closed an USD 80m Series C financing, the company said.

The financing was led by RA Capital Management with participation from new investors including Eventide Asset Management, New Leaf Venture Partners, Soleus Capital, Driehaus Capital Management, Osage University Partners and Asymmetry Capital Management.

Existing investors Northpond Ventures, Sands Capital, Sanofi Ventures, Alexandria Venture Investments, Altitude Life Science Ventures and Agent Capital also participated.

DiCE's drug discovery platform leverages a proprietary DNA-encoded library technology, combined with unique structural insights, to generate small molecule antagonists against a range of protein-protein-interface targets.

Proceeds from the financing will support the progression of the company's first-in-class, oral IL-17 antagonist into clinical trials, as well as enable the advancement and expansion of its preclinical portfolio of additional PPI antagonists.

The IL-17 family of cytokines are strong inducers of inflammation and are implicated in a variety of autoimmune diseases including psoriasis, psoriatic arthritis and ankylosing spondylitis.

In connection with the financing, Jake Simson, Ph.D., will join the DiCE board of directors. As a Partner at RA Capital Management, Dr. Simson works on both public and private investments and serves as a Board director for Xenikos, B.V., Tyra Biosciences and AavantiBio. He holds a B.S. in materials science and engineering from MIT and a Ph.D. in biomedical engineering from Johns Hopkins University.

SVB Leerink acted as exclusive financial advisor for DiCE Molecules' Series C financing.

DiCE Molecules is a biotechnology company utilizing its proprietary DNA-encoded library technology, combined with unique structural insights, to generate small molecule antagonists against a range of protein-protein-interface targets.

The DiCE DEL strategy relies on well-curated libraries of compounds that are customized on a target-by-target basis, allowing the company to carry out medicinal chemistry on a massive scale, greater than 100,000 unique data points per target.

By employing unique screening approaches the company can use its DEL platform to move beyond the simple identification of binders and into defining the SAR of functional inhibition of the targets in question, thus drastically accelerating the hit-to-lead phase of small molecule drug discovery.

To date this approach has been used successfully inhibit four PPI targets, three of which are in immunology and are owned outright by DiCE, and the fourth of which is in immuno-oncology and is part of a long-standing partnership with Sanofi.

All of the DiCE pipeline targets are well-validated, usually by precursor antibodies that have already progressed to market, markedly lowering target risk. DiCE is headquartered in South San Francisco.