US-based biotech Eikon Therapeutics has raised $350.7m in funding to advance its portfolio of cancer candidates.
The company’s lead asset, EIK1001, is a systemically administered Toll-like receptor 7 and 8 (TLR7/8) agonist currently in a Phase III clinical trial (NCT06697301) for advanced melanoma. The study evaluates the combination of EIK1001 and MSD’s blockbuster
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cancer drug Keytruda (pembrolizumab) against Keytruda alone as a first-line treatment. A Phase II study (NCT06246110) is also underway in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), which is set to conclude in 2026.
Eikon acquired the global rights to develop and commercialise the candidate when it acquired TLR7/8 agonist immunomodulators from US-based Seven and Eight Biotherapeutics in 2023. As per the company, in previous studies, EIK1001 has demonstrated single-agent efficacy and promising combination activity across a range of solid tumour types.
This Series D marks one of the biggest venture funding rounds for a biotech this year. The only company to outdo Eikon so far is Verdiva Bio, which raised $410m in a Series A in January 2025. The company launched with three assets licensed from China’s Sciwind Biosciences, including a weekly oral glucagon like peptide (GLP)-1 agonist.
Founded in 2019, Eikon previously raised $106m in a Series C funding round in 2023, bringing total investments to $1.1bn to date. The company was co-founded by Nobel Prize winner Eric Betzig and focuses on using super-resolution microscopy to track protein movements in living cells. Its proprietary platform integrates artificial intelligence (AI) to analyse protein population dynamics, a technology the company believes could influence future clinical trial designs.
The company is also advancing two other candidates through Phase I studies. EIK1003, a highly selective PARP1 inhibitor being investigated in patients with breast, ovarian, prostate, or pancreatic cancers. The second candidate, EIK1004, is a central nervous system-penetrant PARP1-selective inhibitor set to be evaluated in brain cancer. A Phase I trial should be underway later in 2025, said Eikon’s CEO Roger Perlmutter at the JP Morgan Healthcare Conference in January 2025.
Eikon’s early-stage pipeline houses two androgen receptor antagonists and a WRN inhibitor dubbed EIK1005, which is being studied for its potential as a therapy for patients with microsatellite instability (MSI)-high and other DNA repair–deficient cancers.
Lux Capital, Alexandria Venture Investments, AME Cloud Ventures, The Column Group, E15 VC, Foresite Capital, General Catalyst, and Soros Capital participated in the round, among others.
