Emergence Therapeutics
Emergence Therapeutics was a German start-up making an antibody that carries a cancer-killing drug to a protein called Nectin-4, which is found on most bladder cancers. Eli Lilly bought the company in 2023.
Overview
Emergence Therapeutics was a Duisburg, Germany based antibody-drug conjugate developer whose lead candidate, ETx-22, targets Nectin-4, a surface protein overexpressed in most urothelial (bladder) cancers and the target of the approved ADC enfortumab vedotin (Padcev). The company was founded with Heidelberg Pharma as a founding investor. In June 2023 Eli Lilly agreed to acquire all shares of Emergence; terms were not disclosed, although Heidelberg Pharma stated it would receive USD 7 million for its stake. The acquisition formed part of Lilly's renewed push into ADCs alongside its Mablink Bioscience purchase later that year. The former company domain now redirects to lilly.com.
Funding
All startupsInvestors not recorded; see the round sources.
| Round | Year | Amount | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Acquisition · Deal terms not disclosed; founding investor Heidelberg Pharma expected about USD 7 million for its stake plus up to USD 5 million in milestones | 2023 | undisclosed | heidelberg-pharma.com |
Amounts only where the cited source states them. Rounds without a public source are not listed.
Notes
top- Company website is offline; emergencetx.com redirects to lilly.com, which is what the website field records. Earlier venture financing (reported elsewhere as a Series A in 2022) could not be sourced from a fetched primary page and is omitted. Development stage of ETx-22 at acquisition not stated in the fetched source.
Pages like this
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