Perlmutter's Eikon raises $351m in major financing round
Eikon Therapeutics chief executive Roger Perlmutter
Eikon Therapeutics has added to its already copious cash reserves with a $351 million fourth-round financing to fund a rapidly expanding clinical pipeline of cancer therapies.
The start-up – helmed by MSD's former head of R&D Roger Perlmutter – said that the Series D has taken the total raised to more than $1.1 billion since it was formed in 2019. It is one of the largest rounds completed by a biotech so far in 2025, by our reckoning only trailing after the $411 million raised by obesity drug developer Verdiva Bio in January.
Eikon came out of stealth mode in 2021 with a $148 million Series A and a mission to use super-resolution microscopy, based on advanced optics and machine learning techniques, to study the behaviour of proteins in live cells and find drugs to target them.
Since then, its pipeline has expanded to include four clinical-stage programmes – headed by EIK1001, a systemically administered co-agonist of toll-like receptors (TLR) 7 and 8, which is in a phase 3 trial for advanced melanoma – and another 10 in preclinical testing across cancer, immunology, and neuroscience indications.
EIK1001 has also demonstrated efficacy both as a monotherapy and in combination with anti-PD-1/PD-L1 drugs across multiple tumour types, according to Eikon.
The Hayward, California-based biotech's clinical-stage candidates also include EIK1003, billed as a highly selective PARP1 inhibitor currently undergoing phase 1 testing in breast, ovarian, prostate, or pancreatic cancers, and EIK1004, another PARP1 inhibitor designed to cross the blood-brain barrier that is poised to start clinical testing in brain cancers.
In the next few months, Eikon also plans to start clinical trials of EIK1005, a WRN inhibitor with potential in the treatment of microsatellite instability-high (MSI-high) cancers, particularly those deriving from gastrointestinal or endometrial tissues, as well as cancers that have other defects in DNA repair.
"With clinical studies now operating in 28 countries, across five continents, we are accelerating the development of much-needed therapies while continuing to expand our research and development capabilities," said Perlmutter.
"This financing provides the resources necessary to build a fully-integrated, 21st-century biotechnology company that leverages advanced computing, data sciences, and decades of experience in bringing innovative medicines to patients."
Lux Capital, Alexandria Venture Investments, AME Cloud Ventures, The Column Group, E15 VC, Foresite Capital, General Catalyst, Soros Capital, StepStone Group, funds and accounts advised by T Rowe Price Associates, and UC Investments participated in the round, among other backers.
