VIS-410

Arthrex to Create 1,000 Jobs With New $74M Facilit Visterra has outgrown its headquarters and is moving to a site double the size in suburban Waltham, MA. Visterra , currently based in Cambridge, Massachusetts’ Kendall Square, has outgrown its headquarters and is moving to a site double the size in suburban Waltham, Massachusetts. Visterra is a clinical-stage biopharma company focused on developing anti-infectives using its Hierotope platform. The Heirotope technology platform allows the company to design and engineer antibody-based therapeutic products, each binding to an epitope. An epitope is a key component of an antigen, a molecule on the surface of a cell. The company has been growing rapidly. On October 5, 2017, Visterra announced it had completed a Series C financing round totaling $46.7 million, which included a new extension totaling $23.6 million. It had raised an initial $23.1 million in June 2016. The funding is in support of its two lead product candidates, VIS410 and VIS649. VIS410 is an antibody to treat hospitalized patients with influenza A, regardless of the strain of virus causing the infection. VIS649 is an antibody to treat IgA nephropathy. VIS410 is in Phase IIb clinical trials, and VIS649 is in a Phase I trial. The money was also being used to continue developing its ViStar antibody Fc engineering program. The Series C round included existing investors, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation , MRL Ventures Fund, Vertex Venture Holdings Ltd., Polaris Partners, Flagship Pioneering, Omega Funds, Cycad Group, and Alexandria Venture Investments. New investors included Serum Institute of India Pvt. Ltd., CTI Life Sciences and Allegheny Financial Group. Since 2008, the company has raised $122.1 million in venture funding. On November 1, 2017, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA ) granted VIS410 Fast Track designation for influenza A. “Severe influenza A is a serious disease, particularly dangerous in individuals with compromised immune systems, leading to as many as 700,000 hospitalizations and 56,000 deaths annually in the U.S.,” said Brian Pereira, Visterra’s president and chief executive officer, in a statement. “We are developing VIS410 as a single-dose treatment, and plan to initiate a Phase IIb clinical trial in hospitalized patients with influenza A in early 2018.” In addition to VIS410 andVIS649, Visterra has VIS513 in development for dengue fever, VIS705 for severe Pseudomonas aeruginosa infection, and early-stage programs in oncology, more infectious diseases, including RSV and severe fungal infections, and chronic pain. Although Kendall Square is still a desirable location for Boston-based biotech companies, Visterra is not the only biopharma company to head to the less-expensive suburbs. In July 2017, C4 Therapeutics announced it was moving out of Kendall Square to nearby Watertown to double its square footage and save money with lower rent. It had 20,000 square feet in Kendall Square, but more than double that in Watertown. Others leaving Kendall Square for the ‘burbs include Exosome Diagnostics , Dragonfly Therapeutics , and RaNA Therapeutics (since renamed Translate Bio ). Lest anyone think there’s a massive flight out of Kendall Square, plenty of companies are moving there. Shire , the second-largest biotech employer in Massachusetts (after Sanofi Genzyme ), decided in June 2017 to consolidate its statewide employers to two sites—one in Kendall Square, Cambridge, the other in Lexington. And Dutch company Philips NV recently announced in January that it is relocating its North American headquarters from Andover, Mass. to Kendall Square, bringing about 2,000 employees. The relocation is expected in 2020, and is currently building its new facility.

October 2, 2014 By Riley McDermid , BioSpace.com Breaking News Staff An investment syndicate lead by pharmaceutical giant Merck is investing $30 million in a Series B round of financing for Visterra, Inc. , a biotechnology company that has been focusing on therapies for flu and dengue fever, the company said Thursday. The Series B financing round was co-led by new Visterra investors, Merck Research Labs Venture Fund , Vertex Venture Holdings Ltd. and Temasek Life Science Ventures Pte Ltd . Existing investors Polaris Partners , Flagship Ventures , Omega Funds and Alexandria Venture Investments , and new investor Cycad Group , also participated in the upsized financing. Proceeds from the round will be used to advance the development of multiple product candidates from the company’s pipeline of novel monoclonal antibodies that target infectious diseases, including VIS410 for seasonal and pandemic influenza and VIS513 for dengue fever, into the clinic. “This new financing enables us to accelerate the achievement of our next stage of clinical development milestones, including moving our lead antibody for influenza, VIS410, into phase 2 clinical trials, as well as advancing our antibody for dengue fever, VIS513, into the clinic,” said Brian Pereira, president and chief executive of Visterra. The company caught the eye of biotech investors after the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation participated in its Series A funding round of $26 million.Visterra has focused primarily on developing working concepts from MIT biological engineer Ram Sasisekharan , whose findings have launched a rash of new startups including Cerulean Pharma Inc. and Momenta Pharmaceuticals, Inc. . Visterra is hoping to use a newly identified antibody to enter and thwart the tools the influenza virus uses to invade cells. Doing so could produce both preventative and treatment therapies for the flu and dengue, which kill thousands of people worldwide every day. “The proprietary technology that Visterra has developed offers a potentially breakthrough approach to help identify unique disease targets and design therapeutics that could have a significant impact on infectious diseases,” said Janelle Anderson , managing director of Merck Research Labs Venture Fund. As part of the unusual non-tranched funding agreement, Anderson will join Visterra’s board as an observer, and Lincoln Chee , a venture partner at Vertex Venture Holdings, will also receive a seat at the table. var switchTo5x=true; stLight.options({publisher: "0341611e-38a4-415d-9e18-75e093ff27e0", doNotHash: false, doNotCopy: false, hashAddressBar: false});