Escalier Biosciences BV, a privately held biopharmaceutical company, this month closed $19 million Series B financing. The round was led by Forbion with existing investors New Science Ventures and BioGeneration Ventures (BGV) completing the round. Escalier is developing both topical and oral RORγt drug candidates for psoriasis and expects to be in the clinic with its topical compound in mid 2018.

"RORγt is a validated target for psoriasis and other autoimmune disorders and our drug candidates have the potential to provide the desired efficacy and safety in psoriasis patients that is currently unavailable with other topical or oral drugs," said Raju Mohan, Ph.D., Chief Executive Officer of Escalier. "We are incredibly fortunate to have such a supportive syndicate of investors that share our passion in developing novel therapies for challenging targets such as RORγt."

"We are delighted to have Forbion join us in the current round," added Somu Subramaniam, Managing Partner at New Science Ventures. "The Escalier team made tremendous progress last year and we look forward to moving rapidly towards human clinical trials for our lead RORγt topical and oral drug candidates."