A trio of biotechs closed private funding rounds on Thursday, raising a total of about $325 million. The financings are a bright spot for the broader biopharma industry, which has seen a downturn in available venture capital this year (see – Vital Signs: How venture capital is making Europe great again).Leading the pack was Strand Therapeutics, which clinched a $153-million series B, followed closely by Minghui Pharmaceutical and its $131-million pre-IPO round. Rounding out the pack was SNIPR Biome, raising €35 million ($40.8 million) in a series B.Strand's mRNA therapiesAfter pulling back the curtain on its programmable mRNA technology at the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) meeting earlier this year, Strand has now secured funding to advance its pipeline. Kinnevik led Thursday's round, which brings Strand's total funding to over $250 million, following a $97-million series A closed in 2023.New investors Regeneron Ventures, ICONIQ, Amgen Ventures, Alderline Group, JIC-VGI, LG Technology Ventures and Gradiant Corporation, also participated in the round, along with existing backers including FPV Ventures, Playground Global, Eli Lilly, ANRI and Potentum.The biotech's lead candidate, STX-001, expresses the immunomodulatory protein IL-12 directly from the tumour microenvironment to spark a broader immune response. Unlike traditional mRNA therapies, Strand's approach uses self-replicating mRNA to ensure localised and durable therapeutic activity.Phase I data presented at ASCO showed that, of 22 patients with advanced solid tumours refractory to immune checkpoint inhibitors who were treated with STX-001 monotherapy, there was one confirmed complete response, several partial responses and multiple cases of prolonged disease stabilisation.The company has not provided a timeline for moving STX-001 into Phase II testing. Strand is also developing an intravenous, systemically delivered version of the therapy, dubbed STX-003.Minghui moves PD-1/VEGF bispecific forwardMinghui's financing, co-led by Qiming Venture Partners and OrbiMed, will help it advance a bispecific antibody against two of the hottest targets in the oncology space: PD-1 and VEGF (see – Vital Signs: China biotechs flesh out the VEGF bispecific battle at ASCO).Several new backers including BioTrack Capital, New Day Fund, 5Y Capital and Wider Link Enterprise Investment also participated in the round, as did existing investor TF Capital.The company last year revealed Phase I data of MHB039A in patients with relapsed/refractory solid tumours, demonstrating that the bispecific led to substantial and sustained inhibition of both PD-1 and VEGF. Tumour volume reductions were also seen in several cohorts. Based on the early results, Minghui had said it planned to seek strategic partnerships for the bispecific, which it said was well-suited for combination therapies. In the funding announcement Thursday, Minghui said it was particularly interested in exploring combos of MHB039A with antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs).The fresh capital will also help the firm launch its topical JAK inhibitor MH004 (tofacitinib etocomil) for atopic dermatitis in China.SNIPR's antibiotic resistance gene therapySNIPR's latest raise will help it progress its portfolio of CRISPR-based microbial therapies. The Cystic Fibrosis Foundation and the German Federal Agency for Breakthrough Innovation backed the financing, alongside existing investors Lundbeckfonden BioCapital, North-East Family Office and Wellington Partners.According to the biotech, its programmes are designed to harness the natural bacterial CRISPR-based adaptive immune system to target bacteria based on their specific genomes.Its lead candidate, SNIPR001, is in a Phase Ib trial to prevent E. coli blood stream infections in patients with haemotological cancers. SNIPR is also developing a treatment for airway infections caused by Pseudomonas aeruginosa in people with cystic fibrosis, as well as a CRISPR-based microbial intervention designed to eliminate antibiotic resistance genes in humans across various bacterial species and environments. Wednesday's round follows a $50-million series A raised by SNIPR in 2019.