“Crescent was founded to harness recent breakthroughs in immuno-oncology and antibody-drug conjugates that pave the way for a next generation of therapies for patients with solid tumors,” said Jonathan Violin, interim CEO at Crescent and Venture Partner at Fairmount. “Our lead program CR-001 was precision engineered to impart a cooperative binding pharmacology for VEGF x PD-1 bispecific blockade; this mechanism recently demonstrated superior efficacy to the anti-PD1 antibody pembrolizumab in a third party head-to-head Phase 3 clinical trial. The specific level of cooperativity engineered into CR-001 reflects a delicate mechanistic balance, which is essential to our confidence in this program. This transaction and financing enable a potentially rapid development path for CR-001, and for the antibody drug conjugate programs CR-002 and CR-003.”