Zephyrm Biotechnologies Co. Ltd. raised ¥200 million (US$29 million) in a series B financing to support phase I and II trials of the company’s human pluripotent stem cell candidates to treat lung diseases, degenerative joint diseases such as osteoarthritis, CNS diseases, inherited retinal degenerations and retinal degenerative diseases. The money will also be used for the construction of its technology platform and cell manufacturing bases.
A research initiative led by Jennifer Doudna and Jill Banfield of the Innovative Genomics Institute at the University of California, Berkeley, has landed $70 million in funding from the Audacious Project to bring the power and precision of CRISPR-based genome editing to the gut microbiome of humans and animals, in an ambitious effort to engineer complex microbial communities to achieve outcomes that can benefit human health and the environment.
The implosion of Silicon Valley Bank and of the investment bank Credit Suisse has left the current funding backdrop for life sciences “completely unclear” according to Jim Wilkinson, chief financial officer of Oxford Science Enterprises. “I had a cup of coffee yesterday with Credit Suisse, and with Morgan Stanley, and I talked to one of our co-investors who has accessed some cash for us. They all gave me completely different stories,” Wilkinson said.
Complement Therapeutics GmbH raised €72 million (US$79.4 million) in a series A round to move into the clinic a novel gene therapy for treating geographic atrophy secondary to dry age-related macular degeneration. It’s the largest series A round completed in Europe so far this year.
Alebund Pharmaceuticals Ltd. raised ¥200 million (US$29 million) in a pre-C financing round to support the clinical trials of its candidates for kidney disease. It also secured $800 million through a syndicated bank loan to build a manufacturing facility for small-molecule drugs in the Chinese city of Yangzhou, Jiangsu province, as it lays the groundwork for future commercialization.
During what has become one of the slowest IPO years in recent memory, cancer immunotherapy company Cytomed Therapeutics Ltd. debuted on Nasdaq, raising $9.65 million, while inflammatory disease firm Acelyrin Inc. filed to list its stock for a potential $100 million. Up to this point, there were only six biopharma IPOs completed this year – the fewest since 2013. Cytomed, which priced 2.4 million shares at $4 apiece, is now the seventh for 2023, and the fifth on Nasdaq. Two other IPOs have closed on Chinese markets.
Torl Biotherapeutics LLC has raised $158 million in a series B round as it seeks to nudge its anti-Claudin-6 antibody-drug conjugate candidates, TORL-123 and TORL-2307, beyond phase I trials for the treatment of ovarian and gastric cancers, respectively. Claudin-6, or CLDN6, is a molecule that forms tight junctions around cells. It is highly expressed in a range of solid tumor types, so is a popular target for drug development.
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