LONDON – Epsilogen Ltd. has raised £30.8 million (US$41.5 million) in an oversubscribed series B, after its lead immunoglobulin E (IgE) program delivered positive results in a phase I in advanced solid tumors. The money is to fund a phase Ib trial of the product, Mov18 IgE – the first and only IgE antibody to have made it to the clinic – in platinum-resistant ovarian cancer.
Mindmaze SA continued to add significant funds to its coffers with $105 million as part of a series B financing round, following a $125 million debt financing in October. The new money brings total funding to more than $300 million for the company’s virtual reality-based digital neurotherapeutics platform. Its successful fundraising has pushed the company into unicorn status, making it the first Swiss firm to be valued at more than $1 billion.
Third Harmonic Bio Inc. CEO Natalie Holles said the company’s $105 million in series B money will push THB-001 – a first-in-class, highly selective, oral inhibitor of wild-type KIT – “well past the first proof-of-concept study in inducible urticaria [hives].”
Star Therapeutics Inc. emerged from stealth mode to tell the world about its approach to drug discovery and development in rare diseases, and to spin out Electra Therapeutics Inc., the first in a projected family of companies.
Arkuda Therapeutics Inc., a company targeting lysosomal dysfunction to address neurodegeneration, has completed a $64 million series B financing co-led by Cormorant Asset Management and Pivotal Bioventure Partners. The funds will help advance its lead program, a small-molecule progranulin enhancer for frontotemporal dementia in people with an autosomal dominant mutation in the GRN gene, which codes for the protein.
Leyden Laboratories BV has raised $140 million in a series B financing round to develop drugs that treat whole families of viruses, including a wide-spectrum flu antibody licensed from Johnson & Johnson’s Janssen Pharmaceuticals Inc. unit earlier this month.
Investors have backed Oxford University spin-off ONI Ltd. with $75 million to push commercialization of its nanoimaging technology. The startup’s flagship product Nanoimager is a desktop, super resolution microscope capable of visualizing, tracking, and imaging individual molecules in living cells with 20 nm resolution. The technology is already in use with biomedical companies to aid development of more efficient, targeted therapies.
In vitro diagnostic (IVD) company Virtue Diagnostics (Suzhou) Co. Ltd. has raised $100 million in a series B round to develop its clinical diagnostics and bring them to other markets. “With the latest funding, Virtue Diagnostics will hire talent, introduce technology, and expand to other markets,” said Johnson Zhang, CEO of Virtue Diagnostics.
Sihuan Pharmaceutical Holdings Group Ltd.’s subsidiary Xuanzhu Biopharmaceutical Co. Ltd. has raised ¥610.5 million ($96 million) in a series B round led by Sunshine Life Insurance Corp. Ltd.
PERTH, Australia – Inventia Life Science Pty. Ltd. closed a A$35m (US$25 million) series B round that will see the company bring its Rastrum 3D cell culture platform to the U.S. market. The technology can “revolutionize the way drug discovery is done,” Inventia Founder and CEO Julio Ribeiro told BioWorld.