October 2, 2014
By Riley McDermid, BioSpace.com Breaking News Staff
An investment syndicate lead by pharmaceutical giant Merck is investing $30 million in a Series B round of financing for Visterra, Inc., a biotechnology company that has been focusing on therapies for flu and dengue fever, the company said Thursday.
The Series B financing round was co-led by new Visterra investors, Merck Research Labs Venture Fund, Vertex Venture Holdings Ltd. and Temasek Life Science Ventures Pte Ltd . Existing investors Polaris Partners, Flagship Ventures, Omega Funds and Alexandria Venture Investments, and new investor Cycad Group, also participated in the upsized financing.
Proceeds from the round will be used to advance the development of multiple product candidates from the company’s pipeline of novel monoclonal antibodies that target infectious diseases, including VIS410 for seasonal and pandemic influenza and VIS513 for dengue fever, into the clinic.
“This new financing enables us to accelerate the achievement of our next stage of clinical development milestones, including moving our lead antibody for influenza, VIS410, into phase 2 clinical trials, as well as advancing our antibody for dengue fever, VIS513, into the clinic,” said Brian Pereira, president and chief executive of Visterra.
The company caught the eye of biotech investors after the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation participated in its Series A funding round of $26 million.Visterra has focused primarily on developing working concepts from MIT biological engineer Ram Sasisekharan, whose findings have launched a rash of new startups including Cerulean Pharma Inc. and Momenta Pharmaceuticals, Inc. .
Visterra is hoping to use a newly identified antibody to enter and thwart the tools the influenza virus uses to invade cells. Doing so could produce both preventative and treatment therapies for the flu and dengue, which kill thousands of people worldwide every day.
“The proprietary technology that Visterra has developed offers a potentially breakthrough approach to help identify unique disease targets and design therapeutics that could have a significant impact on infectious diseases,” said Janelle Anderson, managing director of Merck Research Labs Venture Fund.
As part of the unusual non-tranched funding agreement, Anderson will join Visterra’s board as an observer, and Lincoln Chee, a venture partner at Vertex Venture Holdings, will also receive a seat at the table.
