This Week in Digital Health’s Post

📣 Very excited to share the news that Thuja Capital has co-led a €12M Seed investment in ARTICA Therapeutics !   Artica is focused on transforming the treatment of autoimmune and inflammatory disorders by developing a pipeline of covalent drugs, which bind irreversibly to their target.   Congrats to Tjeerd Barf, Arwin Ridder, Ad IJzerman and the rest of the Artica team! 🎉   For more details check out the press release on our website, linked below.👇   #SeedInvestment #CovalentTherapeutics #AutoimmuneDisorders #InflammatoryDisorders

It’s time to find out who bagged the biggest private biotech investments in June 2024! 💰 The biggest funding rounds went to the companies Formation Bio, ITM Isotope Technologies Munich SE, and Marea Therapeutics. 📈 Meanwhile, around the world, oncology and central nervous system players attracted the biggest funding rounds overall. 🌍 Read our latest article to find out more about biotech’s biggest private investments in June, as we break down the investments by location and funding type, and compare June’s fundraising to previous months. 💡 https://lnkd.in/dYvuBVt9 #biotechinvestments #oncologyresearch #biotechfunding #healthcareinnovation #investmenttrends #globalbiotech #lifesciences Santa Ana Bio, Inc. | Alzheon, Inc. | Preserving Future Memories | Bright Peak Therapeutics | iOnctura | InduPro | Exsilio Therapeutics | Elion Therapeutics | Enveda Biosciences | Iambic Therapeutics | Spur Therapeutics | āshibio, Inc | Adcytherix | Envisagenics | Vilya | Frontier Medicines | Augustine Therapeutics | GPN Vaccines

Third Arc Bio, a Boston-based biotech company specializing in developing multifunctional antibodies, has raised $165 million in Series A funding. Vida Ventures, Cormorant Asset Management, and Hillhouse Investment jointly led this round. Omega Funds, an existing investor, continued its support, while a diverse group of new investors also participated. These include Goldman Sachs Alternatives, BVF Partners LP, funds and accounts advised by T. Rowe Price Associates, Inc., Janus Henderson Investors, funds managed by abrdn Inc., Marshall Wace, Foresite Capital, Logos Capital, Freepoint Capital Group, and AbbVie Ventures. Third Arc Bio intends to utilize this significant capital infusion to advance its clinical studies, focusing on addressing unmet needs in oncology and autoimmunity. This funding represents a major step forward for the company's mission to develop innovative therapeutic approaches using multifunctional antibodies. https://lnkd.in/gUDKVsUs

Gene&Cell Therapy >> Commit Biologics nabs Novo Holdings support in €16M seed round for complement platform: Novo Holdings is pitching in to Commit Biologics’ seed funding for its research on “supercharging” antibodies to turn on the complement system, an approach that could potentially lead to treatments for blood cancer and autoimmune diseases. The €16 million ($17 million) raise, led by Novo Holdings and Bioqube Ventures, will help accelerate development of Commit’s so-called Bispecific Complement Engaging (BiCE) platform. The funds should offer a runway through the start of 2026, Commit Biologics CEO Krishna Polu told Endpoints News in an interview. The complement system is part of the broader immune system that triggers an inflammatory response to pathogens. To activate the complement system in a targeted way, BiCE uses single domain antibodies that bind to the complement protein C1q. This approach could lead to killing cancer cells or immune cells that drive autoimmune disease, the Danish biotech said in a release. “We can basically take an antibody, use our technology to arm it with these complement activators, and essentially supercharge it,” Polu said, adding that the platform’s use of conventional antibodies could help derisk development. “Our goals under the seed financing are to arrive at two development candidates against two targets in different disease areas,” Polu said. One candidate will likely address a form of blood cancer, while the other may target CD19 for a B cell-mediated autoimmune disease, he added. Other companies are investigating CD19-targeting CAR-T therapies for autoimmune diseases such as systemic lupus erythematosus. But toxicity, manufacturing and cost hurdles mean these therapies may be limited to extremely sick patients, Polu said. “We think our platform can achieve a deep depletion of CD19-positive B cells in tissues, similar to CAR-Ts, but with certain advantages” such as fewer toxicities and manufacturing challenges, he added. Commit was founded in 2021 as a spinout from Denmark’s Aarhus University, and was initially supported and incubated by the BioInnovation Institute. Aarhus has been researching complement structural biology for around 30 years. #lucidquest #genetherapy #celltherapy

Atavistik Bio, a biotechnology company discovering the next generation of precision allosteric therapeutics inspired by the body's natural regulators, announced that it has raised an additional $40 million to advance its lead precision allosteric small molecule therapeutic in oncology into the clinic and to advance its earlier stage pipeline. Read more below: #funding #precisionmedicine #smallmolecule

At Blueprint Medicines, we have successfully brought forward important, fundamental new medicines for patients since our founding 13 years ago. I am honored to join in discussions at the Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO) CEO & Investor Conference about strategies for maintaining an innovation-enabling environment, which may allow companies like Blueprint to deliver more transformational medicines in future. Please join me at our panel discussion today about overcoming challenges in oncology drug discovery and development.

Brenig Therapeutics, a neurology-focused drug development company based in Dover, Delaware, has secured $65 million in Series A funding. The company, which utilizes an AI/ML-based discovery platform, saw its funding round led by NEA, with additional investments from OrbiMed, Torrey Pines Investments, and BioGeneration Ventures. As part of this financial arrangement, Ed Mathers, a Partner at NEA, will join Brenig Therapeutics' Board of Directors. The company plans to use this substantial capital injection to advance its lead compound, BT-267, through healthy volunteer studies and proof-of-concept studies targeting patients with idiopathic Parkinson's disease. This funding represents a significant step forward for Brenig Therapeutics in its mission to develop novel treatments for neurological disorders using advanced AI and machine learning technologies. https://lnkd.in/gUAAJBZE

#fundingalert 💼Company: SynOx Therapeutics 💰Funding: $75Million ⚡Round: Series B  👥Investors: Forbion, HealthCap, Bioqube Ventures, Jon Edwards, PhD, and Carlo Incerti. Founded in November 2020, SynOx Therapeutics Ltd.'s only goal is to develop emactuzumab for use in treating diffuse tenosynovial giant cell tumours (TGCT) and other conditions. With a solid track record of developing biopharma enterprises, SynOx has the support of a syndicate of investors. Biotech startup. The money will be used by the business to provide registrational Phase 3 clinical and CMC data for emactuzumab, a monoclonal antibody (mAb) that inhibits CSF-1(R) and may be the best in class for treating Tenosynovial Giant Cell Tumours (TGCT). Raymond Barlow, Hamina Patel, MB BCh MSc MRCPI, Broes Naeye, Sarah Clare, Sander Veltkamp. Read more - https://lnkd.in/gs-h6Kyd To share your startup story write us on - contact@startuprise.co.uk #SynOxTherapeutics #biopharma #Biotechstartup #funding #fundingnews #news #startupnews #news #startuprise

Apr. 22, 2024 Congrats to Rubedo Life Sciences. Personally and professionally very interested in this area: therapies for age-related diseases. "Rubedo Life Sciences, a biopharmaceutical company focused on developing therapies for age-related diseases, has closed a $40 million Series A financing round... led by Khosla Ventures and Ahren Innovation Capital." "Rubedo’s approach targets senescent cells which can accumulate over time and cause chronic inflammation, leading to fibrosis and tissue degeneration. The company’s drug discovery platform, Alembic, identifies pathologic cells like these to develop targeted therapeutics that can prevent or reverse the resulting age-related diseases."

Alumis, an 𝐢𝐦𝐦𝐮𝐧𝐨𝐥𝐨𝐠𝐲 𝐛𝐢𝐨𝐭𝐞𝐜𝐡 on the cusp of 𝐏𝐡𝐚𝐬𝐞 𝟑, has secured $𝟐𝟓𝟎𝐌 𝐢𝐧 𝐚 𝐬𝐡𝐫𝐮𝐧𝐤𝐞𝐧 𝐈𝐏𝐎. The Bay Area startup sold 𝟏𝟑.𝟏𝟐 𝐦𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐬𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐞𝐬 𝐚𝐭 $𝟏𝟔 𝐞𝐚𝐜𝐡 to fund the late-stage testing of its lead 𝐓𝐘𝐊𝟐 𝐝𝐫𝐮𝐠, studies of a second asset in neuroinflammatory conditions, and preclinical projects. While the IPO was smaller than initially projected, an additional 𝟐.𝟓 𝐦𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐬𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐞𝐬 were sold in a concurrent private placement. With $𝟑𝟒𝟓 𝐦𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐨𝐜𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐝 toward clinical development, Alumis aims to create a next-gen immunology treatment, facing competition from Bristol Myers Squibb’s Sotyktu and Takeda’s TAK-279. Alumis has spent heavily on R&D, with $𝟏𝟑𝟕 𝐦𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐥𝐚𝐬𝐭 𝐲𝐞𝐚𝐫 𝐚𝐧𝐝 $𝟏𝟎𝟏 𝐦𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐢𝐧 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟐. The company, led by Martin Babler, hopes to buck the trend of biotechs trading below their IPO price. https://lnkd.in/eK_H6kda #Biotech #Immunology #IPO #Pharma #HealthcareInnovation