Lululemon founder Chip Wilson has chipped in $100 million to prime the pump for finding a cure to the rare form of muscular dystrophy that has hampered him for the past 35 years. He’s got more than a monetary stake in the donation. The 67-year-old entrepreneur suffers from facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy type 2 (FSHD) and just launched Solve FSHD to find a cure.
Salubris Biotherapeutics Inc. has raised $32 million in financing from its parent company, Shenzhen Salubris Pharmaceuticals Co. Ltd., for the development of its cardiovascular candidate. Funds will be used to continue efforts in an ongoing phase Ib trial and to initiate two additional phase Ib studies in 2022, as well as to expand the company’s pipeline.
Scenic Biotech BV has raised $31 million in a series A round, as it moves to translate its high-throughput platform for identifying genetic modifier genes that suppress or block the effects of disease-causing mutated genes into small-molecule hits and on to the clinic.
Inxmed Co. Ltd. has raised $50 million in a series B round to support clinical trials of its lead candidate, IN-10018, for the treatment of multiple cancers in both the U.S. and China. Inxmed plans to use the funds to invest in trials of IN-10018, bring more stroma-targeting candidates into clinic trials, and improve the firm’s R&D capabilities.
Rather than focus on making one drug at a time, Creyon Bio Inc. is taking its more than $40 million in seed and series A financing to build its platform to understand the genetic roots of disease and then create precision medicines. Creyon is creating datasets to engineer RNA-based and single-stranded oligonucleotide-based medicines (OBMs) in addition to DNA and RNA editing systems. Those datasets are tailored to deliver models that create OBMs that are safe and effective for treating both common diseases and rare diseases.
Alopexx Inc. filed for an IPO that would bank as much as $17 million to continue the firm’s investigations of bacterial, fungal and parasitic infections that express the antigenic target poly N-acetyl glucosamine (PNAG).