Erasca, founded on the bold goal of developing a new generation of oncology drugs, raised an additional $22 million as part of a series A round.
Factoring in the original $42 million raise, the series A round totaled $64 million.
The funding will aid the San Diego-based company’s efforts to license compounds in development. It will also advance the buildout of Erasca’s artificial intelligence platform, positioned by the company as a way to discover and develop oncology drugs designed to not only treat cancer, but cure it.
“Because cancer is such a formidable foe, we are committed to leveraging all available tools to beat it, including supplementing our in-house efforts with both external innovation and in silico approaches like machine learning,” said Jonathan E. Lim, Erasca’s executive chairman and co-founder, in a statement.
Erasca said it has multiple programs underway for undisclosed targets that drive cancer.
New investors in the series A round included ARCH Venture Partners, Andreessen Horowitz, Reneo Capital, and other private and strategic investors.
Lim helmed Ignyta, which sold for $1.7 billion to Roche. He’s part of a crop of biotech superstars that helped catapult the region to new fundraising heights in 2018, the focus of a recent San Diego Business Journal article.
