Abdera Therapeutics Receives $142 Million Investment

Abdera Therapeutics Inc. is a biopharmaceutical company using the advanced antibody-engineered ROVER™ platform to develop tunable and precise radiopharmaceuticals for the treatment of cancer. The company announced that it has raised $142 million. Abdera Therapeutics Inc. has closed a combined Series A and B financing. The financing round was led by Versant Ventures and Amplitude Ventures, as well as Northview Ventures. Abdera co-founders adMare BioInnovations and AbCellera also participated in the round. The Series B round was led by venBio Partners with participation from existing investors as well as new investors including Viking Global Investors, Qiming Venture Partners USA and RTW Investments.

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Designing the Future of Precision Radiopharmaceuticals

Current radiopharmaceutical targeting approaches use either small ligands or large proteins. Small ligands rapidly penetrate the tumor and are destroyed, but are often associated with problems such as low total tumor accumulation, high kidney uptake and kidney toxicity. Large formats using existing antibodies not specifically designed for radiopharmaceutical therapy can block kidney uptake. However, they may limit tumor penetration due to their large size and long circulation half-life, and there is a risk of systemic irradiation, which can lead to bone marrow toxicity. The therapeutic index for either approach is not ideal.