The autoimmune and inflammatory disease–focused company canceled plans to go public earlier this year as the IPO window slammed shut.
In lieu of a long-planned IPO, Odyssey Therapeutics has pulled in a $213 million series D fundraising round. The money will go toward supporting the company’s clinical and preclinical pipeline of autoimmune disease-treating medications, according to an announcement on Wednesday.
Odyssey had opened a bid for an IPO in January, but it languished for five months as the appetite for biopharma companies on Wall Street dried up. The company decided to pull the plug on those plans in June, as the industry sat in an IPO dry spell that has yet to be broken. That spell could lift soon as LB Pharmaceuticals filed plans on Tuesday for a $228 million IPO, the first for the industry in about six months.
But at Odyssey, executives decided to pivot away from the public markets for now, instead choosing to bring back the same investors that funded previous raises, along with some new ones, such as Lightspeed Ventures, Jeito Capital and Affinity Asset Advisors. As part of the fundraising, representatives from some of these investors will join Odyssey’s board of directors.
Odyssey’s most advanced molecule is OD-07656, a RIPK2-targetting small molecule currently in Phase II trials for ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease. Other targets in its pipeline include small molecules for atopic dermatitis, hidradenitis suppurativa and osteoarthritis, as well as protein therapies for lupus, vitiligo and type I diabetes.
In April 2024 Odyssey linked up with Johnson & Johnson’s Janssen Pharmaceuticals to pursue AI-driven small molecule discovery. Financial details were not disclosed, nor were specific disease targets. Six months later, in October, Odyssey joined with Terray Therapeutics to discover transcription factor therapies for inflammatory diseases, again without specific targets or financial details revealed.
Wednesday’s haul brings Odyssey’s fundraising over the last four years to $700 million dollars. Founded in 2021, the company brought in a $218 million series A that same year, a $168 million series B in 2022 and a $101 million series C in 2023.
