Ambit Biosciences

Ambit was an American pharmaceutical company focused on development of kinase inhibitor therapeutics to treat a variety of human diseases.[1][2] As of March 2014, the company was based in San Diego, California, and consisted of a single facility.[3] Ambit made an initial public offering in May 2013,[3] and was listed on the NASDAQ exchange under the symbol "AMBI".[4] Ambit was acquired by Daiichi Sankyo in 2014 and is no longer traded on the NASDAQ exchange.[5]

Products

As of March 2014, three products were under development, of which quizartinib was their lead drug candidate.[1]

Business model

In June 2010, Ambit completed a Series D-2 round of equity financing, raising $30 million in new capital.[6] The investor syndicate was led by Apposite Capital LLP and included existing investors such as Perseus-Soros Biopharmaceutical Fund, OrbiMed Advisors, Forward Ventures, Roche Venture Fund, MedImmune Ventures, GIMV, GrowthWorks, Genechem, Radius Ventures, NovaQuest and Horizon Technology Finance.[7]

As of March 2014, Ambit sought to develop new therapeutics through internal, proprietary research, which is evidenced by their pipeline of three products consisting entirely of internally developed therapeutics.[1] Further, Ambit aimed to be a full life cycle pharmaceutical company by conducting discovery, development and further commercialization of therapeutics.[1]

Among the firms who invested heavily in Ambit prior to its initial public offering was Foresite Capital in January 2013.[4]

In November 2014, Ambit was acquired by Daiichi Sankyo.[8] The prime asset that drove this deal was Ambit's quizartinib (AC220).[9]