Josh Bilenker and Jeff Engelman’s secretive startup Treeline Biosciences has another $421 million, according to a new SEC filing.
The funding, which closed today according to the filing, ranks as one of the biggest of the year in biotech. Thursday’s filing, combined with previous SEC disclosures, suggests Treeline has raised nearly $900 million since its founding in 2021.
The newest filing may be Treeline drawing down on previously committed capital, rather than a new funding round. Bilenker didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment, and an outside spokesperson for the company declined to answer questions about the financing.
The Stamford, CT-based startup has raised hundreds of millions of dollars but said little about its financing or its research programs.
Bilenker, Treeline’s co-founder and CEO, previously sold Loxo Oncology to Eli Lilly for $8 billion in cash and then had a short stint running the Loxo unit at Lilly. Engelman, Treeline’s other co-founder and chief scientific officer, was previously the global head of oncology at the Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research.
They provided a glimpse into the company in a now-three-year-old blog post outlining a vision of a biotech on the “outer edge of scientific possibility.” At the time, Treeline said it was working on molecular targets in oncology that were difficult to drug, as well as other therapeutic areas. Its work spans small molecules, covalent modifiers, molecular glue degraders, allosteric approaches, machine learning and AI.
According to Thursday’s SEC filing, Treeline’s board includes leaders at the investment firms ARCH, KKR, Aisling Capital, OrbiMed, GV and AI Life Sciences, an affiliate of Access Industries.