- Investment brings Series B to a total of €47.6 million
- Johnson & Johnson Development Corporation joins as new investor; receives board seat

Utrecht, The Netherlands, October 3, 2013 – Merus B.V., a biopharmaceutical company focusing on innovative human antibody therapeutics, today announced a €31 million (US$42 million) extension to its Series B financing round, bringing the total round to €47.6 million (US$65 million). Johnson & Johnson Development Corporation (JJDC) joined as a new investor along with existing investors Novartis Venture Fund, Pfizer Venture Investments, Bay City Capital, LSP (Life Sciences Partners), and Aglaia Oncology Fund. A representative of JJDC will join Merus’ Board of Directors. Merus will use the new funds to broaden its portfolio of pre-clinical programs for the treatment of cancer patients and to bring its lead programs into phase I clinical testing.

“We view the continuing support of our investors as a strong endorsement of our technology, our team and our strategy,” said Ton Logtenberg, Chief Executive Officer of Merus. “We are particularly proud to welcome Johnson & Johnson Development Corporation to our investment consortium as our third big pharma corporate venture investor. As a next milestone, we are looking forward to moving our lead candidate into clinical development next year.”

The investment of JJDC in Merus B.V. was announced at the launch of the Johnson & Johnson Innovation Centre in London today.

Earlier this year, Merus presented encouraging research and preclinical data of MCLA-117, a product candidate to treat acute myeloid leukemia, a disease with very poor long-term prognosis. MCLA-117 is based on Merus' proprietary Biclonics™ ENGAGE platform and is currently in development.

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About Merus B.V.
Merus is a fully-integrated biotechnology company developing cancer therapeutics that combine the benefits of monoclonal antibodies with the ability of simultaneously addressing multiple targets. Merus has two lead programs in development, MCLA-128 for the treatment of solid tumors and MCLA-117 for the treatment of hematological malignancies. The company is also developing a broad pipeline of preclinical programs that are available for partnering. Merus’ technologies encompass the proprietary MeMo® transgenic mouse for common light-chain human antibodies and the CH3 heterodimerization technology for the production of full-length IgG Biclonics™. These Biclonics™ are robustly produced from a single clonal manufacturing cell line, using industry-standard systems. Merus’ Biclonics™ bind to multiple disease-associated targets, thereby eliminating tumor cells more efficiently and preventing treatment escape. In Merus´ Biclonics™ ENGAGE approach used in the MCLA-117 program, bispecific antibodies are used to induce the cytotoxic activity of T cells to kill cancer cells. All of Merus’ technologies are available for licensing.
For further information, please visit Merus´ website at www.merus.nl « back to overview