With the overflow of investments into life sciences, who has time to keep up? Find your weekly snapshot of where the cash is headed in this week’s Money on the Move.
With the overflow of investments into life sciences, who has time to keep up? Find your weekly snapshot of where the money’s headed right here, all in one place.
Wuxi Diagnostics
Joined by big-name investors like Thermo Fisher Scientific, WuXi raked in $150 million in a Series B financing round. As the first platform company focused on integrated diagnostics in China, WuXi promotes the concept in clinical practice with its open-access innovation enabling platform. Funds will be deployed to strengthen this platform, advance R&D pipeline and accelerate market penetration in global diagnostics.
Precision therapeutics are unlocking the door to traditionally undruggable cancers and immune disorders. Vividion believes it holds a key to some of these high value targets, bringing in a $135 million Series C to further develop its pipeline and bring programs into the clinic in 2022. Integrating multiple technologies, the biotech’s platform boasts abilities to: find unknown functional pockets on high value targets; interact with those using its first-in-kind, proteome-trained covalent chemistry library; and ensure precise selectivity across the entire proteome with industrial scale chemo-proteomics capabilities. In a partnership with Bristol Myers Squibb, Vividion is advancing a program against an unsolved transcription factor with both oncology and immunology indications.
ARYA Sciences Acquisition IV
Special-Purpose Acquisition Companies, SPACs have recently become the preferred route to the NASDAQ. This fourth “blank check” company spinoff from Perceptive Advisors raised $130 million in an IPO last week and may seek another $25 million at an acquisition closing. The prior three SPACS, ARYA Sciences I, II and III merged with Immatics Biotechnologies, Pfizer spinoff Cerevel Therapeutics and Nautilus Biotechnology (merger pending) respectively. This latest SPAC plans to direct focus on life science companies in North America and Europe.
YishengBio Co. Ltd.
A fully integrated biopharma headquartered in Beijing, YishengBio discovers, develops and commercializes innovative biotherapeutics for cancers and infectious diseases. Using novel PIKA immunomodulating technology, last week’s $130 million Series B will support an R&D center expansion, accelerate commercialization including the clinical development of multiple vaccine candidates and the construction of biologics production facilities in China and Singapore. The company has already obtained over 60 patents for its PIKA technology across more than 30 countries. YishenBio’s PIKA rabies vaccine is planned for global multi-center Phase III clinical trials.
On a mission to “help solve the global organ shortage”, eGenesis is well on its way to making xenotransplantation, a cross-species organ replacement, a reality. The company uses gene-edited organs from animals such as pigs to replace human organs. With a $125 million Series C, the company’s lead programs in kidney and islet cell xenotransplantation are headed to the clinic. Additionally, funds will be used for the continued development of the company’s proprietary gene-editing platform and scaling of GMP production.
Cellarity’s outside-the-box approach landed it the seventh spot on BioSpace’s Top Life Sciences Startups to Watch in 2021. Last week’s $123 million Series B proves its ranking. The company uses computational modeling of cell behavior to treat disease, instead of going after a molecular target, redefining drug discovery through its cell-centric approach. A rep for Cellarity told BioSpace, “The Series B funding will advance these programs and keep enhancing the platform, with the goal of reaching the clinic in the next few years.” The company will also use the funds to “advance its platform work, validate the power of the cell-centric approach across different disease areas, and generate proof of concept.”
Oncology-focused Artiva secured $120 million in a Series B financing round that will be used to advance its allogeneic NK cell therapy development programs and expand ongoing research and development activities. Funds will be used to support the development of its lead asset, AB-101, an ADCC enhancer NK-cell therapy for use in combination with monoclonal antibodies or innate-cell engagers. AB-101 is currently in a Phase I/II study in combination with rituximab for the treatment of relapsed or refractory B-cell lymphomas.
Bringing a new class of precision medicines to the game, FogPharma raised $107 million in a Series C to drug the “undruggable.” The biopharma’s proprietary Helicon peptides combine the targeting accuracy of antibodies with the penetrability of small molecules. Proceeds from this raise will advance its first- and only-in-class direct β-catenin antagonist into clinical development. The target has the potential to address 20% or more of all cancers.
Despite increasingly improved care, heart disease is still the leading cause of death in the world. Tenaya aims to change that through curative therapies addressing the underlying causes. The biotech has programs across three therapeutic platforms to address heart disease: Gene Therapy, Cell Regeneration and Precision Medicine. Tenaya will use its $106 million Series C to advance its lead gene therapy program towards clinical studies, progress new programs into IND-enabling studies, build on current R&D capabilities across platforms and invest in cGMP manufacturing capabilities.
Truvian Sciences
Ready to head to the FDA for device approval, Truvian overshot with its $105 million Series C last week. Saving patients time and money, the comprehensive, single, on-site diagnostic platform can cover all the most commonly ordered diagnostic tests including a lipid panel, metabolic panel, and complete blood cell count. The ability to achieve this right at your doctor’s office or even your pharmacy with an accuracy that rivals central labs is what gives Truvian’s product its edge. Decentralizing healthcare also helps democratize healthcare.
DTx Pharma
Finding unique ways to overcome some of the challenges the market faces, RNA-based therapeutics developer DTx Pharma scooped up $100 million in a Series B to advance to the clinic. The team leverages fatty acids from their FALCON (Fatty Acid Ligand Conjugated OligoNucleotide) platform to bring RNA therapeutics to tissues that were previously inaccessible in patients with serious unmet medical need. Lead programs headed to the clinic over the next few years include ocular, neuromuscular and CNS diseases.
Orna Therapeutics
This RNA-focused company began as an academic query in the labs of MIT. The question posed was around the possibility of expressive, fully engineered circular RNA therapies for the treatment of cancer, autoimmune and genetic disorders. The circular shape is more compact making it an effective delivery vehicle for small compounds. Launching last week with $100 million in financing, the Orna team is looking to see how far this platform can take them. Orna has some big pharma support with investors from Kite, a Gilead company, Bristol Myers Squibb and Novartis.
Xilio Therapeutics
Ready to file with the FDA on two lead candidates, Xilio closed on a $95 million Series C to fund the advance march to the clinic. Xilio develops tumor-selective immunotherapies and the two at the top of the pipeline ready for trial are a tumor-selective IL-2 and a tumor-selective anti-CTLA4 mAb. Both have demonstrated significant anti-tumor effects with minimal peripheral side-effects. This capability potentially brings to the table deeper patient responses as well as more who can benefit from the treatments. IND filings are anticipated this year.
Suzhou Medilink Therapeutics
This Suzhou, China-based company is focused on developing next-generation antibody-drug conjugates that more accurately deliver therapeutics to targeted tissues. This week’s $50 million Series A will help the team build up its conjugate platform and build up a differentiated pipeline for unmet global needs. According to investors, ADC drug development is highly complex, but one of the most important approaches for cancer treatment. They believe Medilink has the know-how to successfully develop this specialized type of drug.
Carisma charmed both new and existing investors to chip in to support the advancement of the biopharma’s pipeline and discovery programs. The $59 million Series B will take lead candidate CT-0508, an anti-human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) targeted chimeric antigen receptor macrophage, into Phase I clinical trials. Trial enrollment has already been initiated.
Cullgen Inc.
With operations in both San Diego and Shanghai, Cullgen closed on a $50 million Series B to support the development of its technology platform and pipeline of targeted protein degraders. Cullgen has plans to file an IND later this year for its most advanced program, CG001419. This TRK protein degrader is targeted at cancer and other disease applications. Funds will also be used to optimize the company’s pipeline of novel E3 ligands, which Cullgen’s Chairman believes is the future of targeted protein degradation.
After picking a ripe $80 million in December, Pear sought after a bit more adding another $20 million to its Series D for a total investment of $100 million for the prescription digital therapeutics (PDT) company. While the investor was kept under wraps, the CEO referred to it as “one of America’s leading health care providers and health plans.” The Series D is being used for accelerated reimbursement coverage for the three products the FDA has authorized, with the goal to increase access to PDTs. PDTs use software to directly treat disease through the patient’s cell phone to target when and where they need it most. The current products focus on substance and opioid use disorders and chronic insomnia.
