Money on the Move: Tech Innovation Reigns Supreme

2022-06-08

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Funding this week went mostly to companies with sophisticated tech platforms. Financing rounds will support platforms for tumor-targeting antibodies, genome-scale nucleic acid imaging and no-code bioinformatics for scientists to store and visualize data. Coya Therapeutics Coya Therapeutics, a clinical-stage biotechnology company utilizing cell-based therapy for neurodegenerative and autoimmune diseases, just announced it has raised approximately $10.3 million from institutional and accredited investors. This brings the company's total funding to date to over $20 million. This financing paves the way for clinical development across several of Coya’s therapeutic programs, including COYA 101, an autologous Treg cell therapy for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS); COYA 201, an autologous Treg-derived exosome therapeutic for ALS; COYA 202, an allogenic Treg-derived exosome therapy for frontal temporal dementia; and a novel biologic program for investigational new drug (IND) submissions for ALS, frontal temporal dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. ImmunOs Therapeutics Switzerland-based ImmunOs Therapeutics closed an oversubscribed Series B financing round with $74 million. The round was led by new investors Samsara BioCapital, Lightspeed Venture Partners and Gimv, joined by new investors Mission BioCapital, GL Capital, PEAK6 Strategic Capital and Fiscus Financial, as well as existing investors Pfizer Ventures, BioMed Partners, and Schroder Adveq. The funding will propel ImmunOs’ clinical development of its lead program, IOS-1002, a first-in-class, multi-functional agent that targets components of the immune system, as well as several other immunotherapy treatments for solid and liquid tumors. The funding will also support ImmunOs’ new U.S. subsidiary to expand its international reach and execute U.S. clinical trials. PineTree Therapeutics PineTree Therapeutics, a pre-clinical stage biotech company that pioneers disruptive therapies in oncology and immuno-oncology, closed a Series A1 round of funding worth $23.5 million. Investors included InterVest, SK Securities, DSC Investment, J Curve Investment, Samho Green Investment and SJ Investment Partners. With the money, PineTree will advance its oncology and viral disease platforms, including its Tumor Associated Essential Receptor Targeting AntiBody (TAER-TAB) platform, which targets and degrades drug-resistant and difficult-to-treat receptors on types of tumors and types of immune and disease cells. National Resilience Complex medicine biomanufacturing company National Resilience raised $625 million in a Series D financing. That amount is on top of a previously unannounced $600 million Series C financing the company completed in August 2021. “These new funds will help support our next phase of growth, as we continue to innovate biomanufacturing across all our modalities, expand our footprint to serve customers, sign strategic collaborations and support the developers of a new generation of complex medicines,” Rahul Singhvi, Sc.D., CEO of Resilience, said. The funding will also help Resilience advance its R&D efforts, including stable cell lines for viral vector production and continuous manufacturing for biologics. Vizgen Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Vizgen closed a Series C financing, bringing in $85.2 million. The financing was led by Blue Water Life Science Advisors and ARCH Venture Partners and included support from Sofina, Northpond Ventures, Tao Capital Partners, Novalis LifeSciences, David Walt and others. Vizgen, which visualizes single-cell spatial genomics information, will use the funds to advance drug discovery and improve insight into tissue-scale basic research and translational medicine. The funding will also hone the company’s Merscope platform, which enables massively multiplexed, genome-scale nucleic acid imaging with high accuracy and detection efficiency at subcellular resolution. LatchBio In a Series A round of financing, San Francisco-based LatchBio raised $28 million for its modern data analysis stack. The funding was co-led by Coatue and Lux Capital with participation from Hummingbird Ventures, Caffeinated Capital, and existing investors Haystack and Fifty Years. With the money, LatchBio will continue its work on its cloud-based platform, which offers no-code bioinformatics for scientists to store and visualize data. The platform helps solve computational and logistical challenges for researchers with its biocomputing workflows, which can speed up discovery and translational research. Vernal Biosciences Vernal Biosciences completed a $21 million financing with the goal of fully integrating its mRNA manufacturing solutions. The financing, led by Ampersand Capital Partners and Dynamk Capital with participation from Alloy Therapeutics, ATUM and Charles River Laboratories, Inc., will support Vernal’s goal of bringing design sequences, plasmid template and RNA manufacturing, release testing of drug products and other mRNA and LNP-mRNA manufacturing services all under a single contract.