Versant Ventures launched Vector BioPharma, a company developing a “precision gene delivery platform that is devoid of viral genes.” Rani, REVA Medical and Summit Therapeutics also scored funds.
VC funding, rights offerings and loan agreements accelerated companies’ innovations this week. Money will now be going toward bioresorbable vascular beads, biopharma manufacturing transformation, biotech hormone capsules and women’s health diagnostics.
Versant Ventures Launches Vector Biopharma
Versant Ventures has announced the launch of Vector BioPharma AG, what it calls a “biopharmaceutical company developing a precision gene delivery platform that is devoid of viral genes.” With $30 million committed, Vector is Versant’s most recent venture in a long list of investments.
Vector states its mission is threefold: to overcome “issues with tissue-specific delivery of payloads, limitations on the size of genetic cargo that can be packaged and challenges associated with adverse immunogenic reactions.”
$45M Loan Agreement Paves Rani’s Runway into 2024
Thanks to a new loan agreement with Avenue Venture Opportunities Fund, oral biologics delivery company Rani Therapeutics has a cash runway to carry its projects into mid-2024. The loan agreement will provide $15 million to Rani at closing, with another $15 million that will be available at the company’s discretion in Q4 2022 and a third $15 million depending on milestones.
The $45 million will go toward advancing the RaniPill HC (high capacity) device. The capsule, which delivers the company’s proprietary parathyroid hormone treatment for osteoporosis, is currently being assessed in a Phase I study. The funding may also go toward another Phase I study.
REVA Medical Closes $45M Series B for Biotech Vascular Devices
Biostar Capital and an unnamed strategic investor led a $45 million Series B financing round for REVA Medical, a San Diego-based bioresorbable polymer technologies company that focuses on vascular applications. The cash gives momentum to two of REVA’s big projects. The first is a planned clinical trial for the company’s MOTIV Peripheral Vascular Bioresorbable Scaffold, which REVA hopes to obtain FDA approval for soon.
The cash will also help with a second initiative: getting FDA clearance for the TyroSphere embolic beads, which are bioresorbable embolic microspheres designed to treat hypervascular tumors that can be visible under x-rays.
Summit Therapeutics Closes $100M Rights Offering
On July 18, Summit Therapeutics announced a $100 million rights offering. Less than a month later, the company announced it is closing the fully subscribed offering. Summit sold stock at $0.97 per share and achieved its goal of gross proceeds of $100 million with only around $100,000 in expenses. This leaves plenty of cash for Summit to spend on projects, but the company has not specified what it plans to do with the money.
One possibility is that Summit may use the money to continue pushing its C. difficile infection treatment ridinilazole, which has had trouble gaining approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. As of July, Summit was in talks with the FDA to perform an extra clinical trial on the product.
NIIMBL Boosts Biopharma Manufacturing with $15.8M
The National Institute for Innovation in Manufacturing Biopharmaceuticals (NIIMBL) has set aside $15.8 million to invest in 14 new projects. Since NIIMBL was founded in 2017, it has awarded more than $95 million across about 100 projects.
Now, this latest investment will go toward measuring quality assurance attributes, improving reliability and quality assurance during manufacturing processes, innovating cell processing techniques, increasing awareness about biopharmaceutical manufacturing careers in diverse populations and creating education and professional development options in cell therapy, gene therapy, and mRNA vaccine manufacturing.
Immunis Scoops up $10M for Immune System Health
Private biotech company Immunis closed a Series A financing round with $10 million. The funding, led by Remiges Ventures, will help advance Immunis’ secretome treatment, IMM01-STEM, which uses natural immunomodulators with cytoskeletal remodeling properties to address muscle loss mitigation and muscle recovery related to aging. The funds will help push IMM01-STEM through a Phase I/IIa clinical trial targeting muscle atrophy.
Nanopath Breaks Barriers with $10M for Women’s Health
Molecular diagnostics company Nanopath made headlines this week. Not only did the Cambridge, Massachusetts-based company scoop up $10 million in a Series A financing round, but it raised the funding specifically for women’s health. Nanopath aims to change the way women’s pelvic and gynecologic infections are diagnosed with its biosensing technology. NASDAQ reports that only about 5% of digital health investments go toward women’s health, and only 4% of all healthcare R&D focuses on this area.
“Nanopath’s mission is deeply rooted in improving women’s health and even more broadly, health equity for all,” Amogha Tadimety, Ph.D., co-founder and CEO of Nanopath said. “We envision Nanopath’s technology as the go-to platform for routine women’s health screening, allowing for clinically actionable diagnosis within a single office visit. With this funding, we’re looking to build our technical team and initiate commercial and clinical partnerships to bring our technology platform to market.”
Prellis Biologics Pushes Drug Discovery with $35M Series C
San Francisco-based Prellis Biologics has had an eventful week. In addition to appointing Michael Nohaile, Ph.D. as its new CEO, the company also raised $35 million in a Series C fundraising co-led by Celesta Capital and Avidity Partners. The money will support Prellis’ human immune system-based drug discovery and development platform, EXIS (Externalized Human Immune System).
EXIS uses holographic technology to 3D print tissue co-culture systems. The printed tissue allows Prellis to experiment with how new vaccines and antibodies will affect the human immune system without having to perform costly and slow clinical trials.
