Startup Curimeta Inc. emerged from stealth with $6 million in seed financing led by Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and BJC Healthcare, a St. Louis-based nonprofit health care system. Cultivation Capital Healthcare Innovation Fund also participated in the round.
Laverock Therapeutics Ltd. (formerly Skylark Therapeutics) recently completed a seed funding round to support its development of a unique gene silencing platform for the creation of programmable, allogeneic cell therapies.
Astrivax BV has raised €30 million (US$30.1 million) in a seed round to take forward the development of a novel vaccine technology that combines a plasmid vector with a replication-competent virus.
Monod Bio Inc. raised a $25 million seed financing round to advance its protein-based biosensor technology. The round was led by Matrix Capital, with participation from the Global Health Investment Corp., Cercano Management, the Washington Research Foundation, Boom Capital Ventures, Sahsen Ventures, and Pack Ventures. The funds will be used to create protein biosensors for rapid point-of-care medical diagnostics and biotechnology applications.
Increased payload capacity for gene therapies, off-the-shelf genome-engineered allogeneic cell therapies, reduced cost of goods and faster bioprocesses, are promised by “big DNA” specialist Replay Holdings LLC. The newco arrived with a $55 million seed round and having assembled a portfolio of technologies for writing and delivering large pieces of DNA.
Sonio SAS raised just over $5 million in its seed round to develop artificial intelligence (AI) software allowing health care professionals to determine the most appropriate pregnancy care. Its Sonio Diagnostic software delivers decision support for fetal ultrasound used in antenatal diagnostics.
In the last decade, Bayer AG and Novartis AG have shown that radiopharmaceutical technology can produce marketable drugs, with Xofigo (radium-223 dichloride) and Lutathera (lutetium [177Lu] oxodotreotide), respectively approved for prostate cancer and neuroendocrine tumors.
Bright Uro Inc. has emerged from stealth mode with $4 million in seed financing from Academy Investor Network, Fred Moll and several other angel investors. The company also secured a $2 million phase II small business innovation research (SBIR) grant from the NIH.
University of Edinburgh spinoff Biocaptiva Ltd. has raised an additional $2.6 million (£2.1 million) in seed financing for its cell free DNA (cfDNA) capture device, Biocaptis. Business angel syndicate Archangels led the round, with participation from Scottish Enterprise and Cancer Research Horizon, the innovation engine of Cancer Research UK.