DUBLIN – Anavo Therapeutics BV raised €20 million (US$24 million) in seed financing to fund the build-out of a platform that aims to drug the human phosphatome, or the ensemble of phosphatase enzymes that plays a crucial role in maintaining cells’ phosphorylation balance by removing phosphate groups from their target substrates.
Tesseract Health Inc. has closed an oversubscribed series B financing, reeling in $80 million with support from Foresite Capital, Glenview Capital and Opaleye. The proceeds will be used to advance the company’s Tesseract Ic eye-imaging diagnostic technology platform, including U.S. and overseas regulatory clearances. This is the first independent financing round for the Guilford, Conn.-based startup, which is developing a platform capable of diagnosing a range of diseases without a single blood draw. The company received prior seed funding as part of the 4Catalyzer med-tech incubator.
The development of gene therapy has come a long way over the past two decades after getting off to a rocky start following the death of a young patient after being treated with an experimental therapy. Since that time continuing scientific progress has enabled the development of a robust product pipeline of promising therapies that could lead to, according to FDA estimates, 10 to 20 cell and gene therapy products a year within the next five years. The renaissance of the sector has also attracted record amounts of investment capital and significant business development.
Versant Ventures has closed three new funds with an aggregate raise of $950 million to allocate to the next wave of innovative startups across North America and Europe. The money is new, but everything else is more or less unchanged. “It’s the same strategy, same team, same geography, same operational model,” Versant chairman and managing director Brad Bolzon told BioWorld.
Genome editing startup Edigene Inc. closed a ¥400 million (US$62 million) series B+ round to expand its operation to more cities and advance its lead product ET-01 into clinical trials. The financing follows the $67 million series B that closed in October 2020.
HONG KONG – Beijing Stonewise Technology Co. Ltd., a med-tech firm that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to aid in the discovery of small molecule drugs, closed series B and B+ financing rounds that added $100 million to its pocket. The company intends to use the proceeds to upgrade its AI-enabled drug discovery platform.