CSU spinoff VetDC raises $2.1M to help commercialize canine cancer drug

FORT COLLINS – Colorado State University spinoff VetDC Inc. has raised $2.1 million of what it hopes will be a total round of $3 million to $6 million to help move its canine lymphoma drug toward commercialization.

Chairman and chief financial officer Steve Warnecke said Tuesday that $3 million would allow the Fort Collins-based company to build inventory, finish the Food and Drug Administration approval process, and launch Tanovea.

The drug would be five-year-old VetDC’s first to market, though it has others in the development pipeline that also treat cancer in animals. VetDC filed for FDA approval of Tanovea in January. Warnecke said the company should hear back by this fall whether the drug is approved on the first try.

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If that happens, he said the company could begin pulling in revenue by the end of the year. Approval would also likely trigger the build-out of a sales and support staff of roughly 15 employees between fall of this year and spring of 2015. VetDC has just two fulltime employees now, Warnecke and CEO Steven Roy, with several contractors playing key roles.

Roy, chief science officer Terry Opgenorth and CSU founded the company in 2010. Pharmaceutical company Gilead Sciences Inc. had enlisted CSU to conduct animal trials with a human version of Tanovea. VetDC now licenses the drug for animal use from Gilead.

The CSU Research Foundation remains a significant shareholder in the company.

Including the $2.1 million in the new round, VetDC has raised $8.3 million to date. Previous funding had come largely from the angel capital community, with Denver-based Rockies Venture Club playing a big part in that, Warnecke said. He added that High Country Venture in Boulder has come onboard in the current funding round.