Apogen regenerates series A

Apogen Biotechnologies, a US-based oncological therapy spinout of University of Minnesota, boosted its series A round to $11m yesterday with a $4m extension from investors including pharmaceutical firm Merck Group.
Merck contributed to the capital through its corporate venturing subsidiary M Ventures, and was joined by unnamed, existing investors.
Apogen previously raised an initial $7m tranche in 2016 from WRF Capital, the investment arm of commercialisation firm Washington Research Foundation, Arch Venture Partners and Accelerator Life Science Partners.
AbbVie Ventures and Johnson & Johnson Innovation – JJDC, respective corporate venturing units for drug developers AbbVie and Johnson & Johnson, also backed the first close, as did pharmaceutical firms Eli Lilly and Wuxi AppTec’s corporate venture fund.
Alexandria Venture Investments, a subsidiary of real estate developer Alexandria Real Estate Equities, and Watson Fund also took part.
Founded in 2014, Apogen is working on medications that…