With $150M in the bank, Dalcor seeks phase III success with dalcetrapib

Seeking to succeed where big pharma failed, start-up Dalcor Pharmaceuticals completed a $100 million series B round to put an exclamation point on the $50 million series A the company closed late in 2015. The company was launched a year ago by Sanderling Ventures LLC with a new take on dalcetrapib – a phase III asset abandoned by Japan Tobacco Inc. and Roche AG after it failed to show efficacy in treating dyslipidemia in patients with coronary heart disease. Dalcor subsequently licensed the second-generation, oral cholesteryl ester transfer protein, or CETP, inhibitor from Roche with the goal of advancing the candidate in a genetically distinct population of patients with cardiovascular disease. The series A/B proceeds will fund a phase III trial of dalcetrapib in an estimated 5,000 patients who recently experienced acute coronary syndrome. An investigational companion diagnostic test developed by Roche Molecular Systems will be used to determine if a patient is eligible to receive the drug.

Source: BioWorld