Life sciences advances continue to be an exciting opportunity for investors. Here’s a glance at the companies attracting fresh funding the past week.
Life sciences advances continue to be an exciting opportunity for investors. Here’s a glance at the companies attracting fresh funding the past week.
While some companies have backed off a bit from the booming SPAC trend due to critical comments from regulators, the reverse merger path to the Nasdaq is still seeing a ton of action. Pear is one of the latest biotechs to go public by merging with Thimble Point Acquisition Corp. The deal will value the prescription digital therapeutics company at $1.6 billion. Pear won the first FDA approval for a software-based treatment with its reSET product, a program that uses cognitive behavioral therapy to treat Substance Abuse Disorder. Subsequently, reSET-O for Opioid Use Disorder and Somryst for chronic insomnia were also approved. With the fresh funds from the merger, Pear will invest in the commercialization of these products and advance its large pipeline of candidates ranging from psychiatry to neurology to oncology to the heart and digestive system.
While current approved T cell therapies can only target blood cancers, Lyell Immunopharma is working diligently on reprogramming the immune cells to fight solid tumors. Offering a massive 25 million shares, Lyell aimed high last week hoping for $425 million in its initial public offering. The San Francisco-based company finished a massive, cutting-edge $65 million manufacturing facility for its cell therapies in March. With solid tumor targeting candidates lined up in the pipeline, including a collaborative program with Glaxo Smith Kline, the hope is to be in the clinic sometime in 2022.
Focused on cardiovascular disease, gene editing company Verve Therapeutics was ready to take its next step by joining fellow biotechs on the exchange. Outdoing its original goal, Verve brought in $306.7 million by selling just over 2.1 million shares at $19 a pop. After the J.P. Morgan Conference in January, Verve raked in a $94 million Series B to support IND-enabling studies for its lead candidate, VERVE-101. The gene editing therapy is a combination base editor messenger RNA and guide RNA delivered just once via lipid nanoparticle to deactivate PCSK9 in the livers of in nonhuman primates with heterozygous familial hypercholesterolemia.
Insilico Medicine
Founded in 2014, Insilico focuses on using artificial intelligence (AI) for drug discovery and development. This February, its drug for idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis was announced as the first-nominated AI-discovered preclinical candidate. Now with fresh $255 million Series C funds, Insilico will be advancing its therapeutic programs into the clinic. The Hong Kong-based biotech will also launch several new programs for “novel and difficult targets” in addition to further development of its AI and drug discovery capabilities.
SAB is also riding the SPAC-wave announcing this week an agreement to combine with Big Cypress Acquisition Corp. SAB’s proprietary platform produces polyclonal antibody therapies for immune system disorder and other diseases. The deal will snag the South Dakota-based company up to $118 million of pro forma cash. With these fresh funds, the combined company will further develop and commercialize the DiversitAb™ platform. This platform uses SAB’s proprietary transchromosomic bovine™ herds to generate targeted fully-human polyclonal antibody treatments immune system disorders as well as cancer and infectious diseases, all without human donors. Additional proceeds from the merger will also go toward advancing SAB’s drug pipeline and platforms across different programs.
This Massachusetts-based oncology startup raised $133 million on its first day of trading on the Nasdaq last Friday. Still in early stages, Cyteir’s lead candidate is poised for a Phase II trial by the second half of this year. The company’s “synthetic lethality” approach blocks cancer cell ability to repair. With its lead candidate focused on blood cancers and solid tumors, its shown promise in non-Hodgkin lymphoma and other cancers. Cyteir brought in $80 million this February with a Series C round to launch the Phase II trial and double its headcount from 25 to 50 staffers.
Fractyl Health
Dedicated to reversing the metabolic disease epidemic, Fractyl took in a hefty $100 million Series F financing. The initial focus for the Massachusetts company is type 2 diabetes. The cash infusion will expand and accelerate clinical efforts for reducing insulin dependence for type 2 patients on a global scale. Its device, Revita DMR, obtained Breakthrough Device Designation from the FDA. Multiple late-stage clinical studies will assess the device’s potential to treat and halt the progression of metabolic disease.
Mnemo Therapeutics
Breaking the record in France for a Series A, Mnemo raked in $90 million for its financing round. The Paris-based biotech will use the funds to create targeted immuno-oncology treatments for a broader range of patients with its next-generation CAR-T and epigenetics platform. Mnemo was built on the technological innovation of prominent scientific founders from Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and Institut Curie. The biotech is planning sites at the Alexandria Center® for Life Science in New York and an additional site in New Jersey.
TRexBio
South San Francisco TRexBio chomped down on a hearty $59 million of Series A funds. The company’s “deep biology” discovery platform leverages high-resolution human tissue profiling, computational biology, and a proprietary system to generate tissue-like regulatory T-cells (Tregs), as well as phenotypic assays. So far, TRexBio has collaborated with Eli Lilly and the University of California, San Francisco. It has advanced six preclinical programs in immuno-oncology and inflammation, with two expected to be picked for clinical advancement in the next year. It has identified more than 20 tissue-focused targets using its tech platform.
Enveda Biosciences
Also heading out the gate with Series A funds, Enveda is building the “first high-resolution chemical map of the natural world” to unlock new medicines. The $51 million in fresh funds will power the company’s drug discovery engine. By applying machine learning and metabolics to an age-old practice, extracting medicine from plants, Enveda’s platforms screen, validate and develop compounds to tackle hard-to-treat disease like NASH, Parkinson’s and Wilson’s Disease.
