Ambit Biosciences Raises Over $49 Million in Series D Financing

SAN DIEGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Ambit Biosciences today announced that it has raised $49.3 million in a Series D equity financing from a strong, international syndicate of new and existing investors. The Series D funds will be used to support continued advancement of Ambit’s growing product pipeline, which includes several drug candidates in clinical and pre-clinical development.

“Ambit has built a portfolio of promising kinase inhibitors by leveraging the strength and speed of our KinomeScan™ profiling technology”

“Ambit has built a portfolio of promising kinase inhibitors by leveraging the strength and speed of our KinomeScan™ profiling technology,” said Scott Salka, chief executive officer of Ambit. “As we continue to build a world-class company to drive our many drug development programs and commercial opportunities, we welcome the financial strength and industry experience of our expanded investor base.”

The investor syndicate was led by Apposite Capital LLP and included participation from MedImmune Ventures, OrbiMed Advisors, Radius Ventures, NovaQuest, and Horizon Technology Finance, as well as current investors Perseus-Soros Biopharmaceutical Fund, Forward Ventures, Avalon Ventures, Roche Venture Fund, GIMV, Jov-CMDF, and Genechem.

In connection with the financing, Allan Marchington, partner at Apposite, David Mott, chief executive officer and president of MedImmune, and Antonio Grillo-Lopez, former chief medical officer of IDEC, will join Ambit’s eight-member Board of Directors, which also includes chairman Steve Elms, managing director of Aisling Capital, Standish Fleming, managing member of Forward Ventures, Ian Lennox, co-founder of Impax/Fairway Capital, Nick Lydon, Ph.D., founder of Granite BioPharma, and Scott Salka.

“With this financing, Ambit has sufficient resources to advance multiple drug development programs in parallel,” said Steve Elms. “Furthermore, Ambit’s newest Board members bring considerable clinical and commercial expertise to augment the company’s already impressive internal capabilities.”

“Apposite Capital is excited to be leading this investment in Ambit,” added Allan Marchington. “The company has made significant and meaningful progress in developing its technology and drug pipeline and has assembled a stellar R&D team capable of moving these assets quickly toward value-building milestones.”

About Ambit Biosciences

Ambit Biosciences is a privately-held biopharmaceutical company engaged in the discovery and development of small molecule kinase inhibitors for the treatment of cancer. The company also markets the industry's most comprehensive kinase profiling service through its KinomeScan Division. KinomeScan is a proprietary technology designed to screen small molecule libraries against large numbers of human kinases. Ambit has multiple drug candidates in pre-clinical and clinical development, including AC220, a selective class III receptor tyrosine kinase inhibitor currently in Phase I for treatment of acute myeloid leukemia. The company has partnerships with Roche, Bristol-Myers Squibb, GlaxoSmithKline, Cephalon, and other leading organizations. For more information, please visit www.ambitbio.com.

About Apposite Capital

Apposite is a single sector fund investing in both life sciences and healthcare services on an international basis. Based in London, Apposite spun out from the Mizuho Financial Group, one of Japan's largest financial services companies. The members of the Apposite team have a highly synergistic mix of healthcare venture/private equity, entrepreneurship, management and investment banking experience spanning many decades. Apposite also benefits from an established global network of leading advisors covering all aspects of the global healthcare market. The fund's strategy is to leverage the capabilities of the team and its advisors, combined with the fund's extensive range of contacts in Japan, Europe and the US, to continuously add value to its portfolio companies. For more information about Apposite please visit the website www.apposite-capital.com.

About MedImmune Ventures

MedImmune Ventures, Inc. is a wholly owned venture capital subsidiary of MedImmune, Inc. It was created in 2002 to leverage the company's expertise in discovering, developing and commercializing biotechnology products, as well as its financial resources, to transform new ideas in biotechnology into successful products and companies. MedImmune Ventures invests in early- to late-stage, public or private biotechnology companies focused on discovering and developing human therapeutics. MedImmune Ventures primarily seeks to invest in areas of strategic interest to MedImmune, including infectious disease, immunology and oncology. For more information, visit www.medimmune.com.