On Target Laboratories Raises $40M in Round Led by Johnson & Johnson
A company developing cancer-imaging technology spun out of the Purdue University, On Target Therapeutics, has now raised $40 million to advance the development of its compounds.
The West Lafayette-based company said the financing round was led by new investor JJDC Inc., the investment arm of Johnson & Johnson, the biotech and consumer-goods giant. The fund will help it further advance two compounds that are armed with a bright fluorescent dye which illuminates cancer cells during surgery but leaves normal cells dark.
That illumination can enable surgeons to see and remove cancer lesions they otherwise might have missed.
Its lead imaging compound, called OTL38, is expected to soon enter into a Phase 3 clinical trial for use in detecting multiple cancers, including ovarian and lung.
In clinical trials of OTL38 in lung cancer surgery, On Target is evaluating whether the compound allows surgeons to better locate smaller nodules, enabling them to spare healthy tissue.
The technology was developed by Philip S. Low, a chemistry professor at Purdue and co-founder of On Target.
Low discovered that cancer tumors have a greater number of certain kinds of receptors on the surface of their cells. By combining
a molecule that binds to these receptors with a fluorescent molecule, On Targets technology can make the cancer cells light up during surgery.“This funding will allow us to continue work aimed at benefiting the lives of ovarian and lung cancer patients worldwide by enabling surgeons to see and remove cancer lesions that they otherwise would have missed if not for this fluorescent imaging technology,” said Martin Low, CEO of On Target Laboratories. “We are thrilled to have JJDC as our investment partner.”
“Our goal is to significantly improve the treatment of cancer patients undergoing surgery, by helping the surgeon identify and resect malignant lesions that are too small or buried to be seen with the naked eye,” said Philip S. Low, Ph.D., Presidential Scholar in Drug Discovery and Ralph C. Corley Distinguished Professor of Chemistry at Purdue University.