Venture Capital Deals At A Glance
Company	Financing
Matchpoint Therapeutics, Inc.; Cambridge, MA	The start-up launched on 14 October with a $70m series A round led by Sanofi Ventures and $30m in prior seed financing to discover and develop precision medicines for immune diseases. Matchpoint is specifically focused on covalent medicines and its Advanced Covalent Exploration (ACE) platforms combines chemoproteomics to identify novel covalent binders to disease-causing proteins, machine learnings algorithms to guide target selection and drug design, and proprietary libraries of covalent compounds.
Inversago Pharma Inc.; Montreal	New Enterprise Associates led a CAD$95m ($70m) series C round for Inversago, which is developing peripherally-acting CB1 inverse agonists. The company said on 17 October that it will use the proceeds to take lead asset INV-202 into a Phase II clinical trial in diabetic kidney disease and advance its preclinical CB1 blockers for metabolic conditions and fibrotic diseases. Inversago raised a $35m series B round in September 2020. (Also see "Finance Watch: $320m In New VC Deals Includes $110m Round For Neogene" - Scrip, 15 September, 2020.)
Normunity, Inc.; Boston and West Haven, CT	Normunity launched on 25 October with $65m in series A cash to fund its development of a new class of therapies called immune normalizers that target previously undiscovered mechanisms of immune disruption in cancer. The company’s therapeutic candidates come from a research collaboration with Yale School of Medicine that leverages drug discovery platforms from the lab of Lieping Chen, who identified the immuno-oncology drug target PD-L1 (B7-H1). Series A proceeds will allow the company to build on Chen’s discovery platforms and advance programs toward the clinic.
Orionis Biosciences Inc.; Boston and Ghent, Belgium	Orionis announced $55m in new financing on 19 October to expand its R&D of selective and tunable drugs for cancer and other diseases, grow its pipeline and take its lead cancer immunotherapy programs into the clinic; a conditionally active cytokine will move into Phase I development in 2023. Novartis AG, which entered into a four-year drug discovery collaboration with Orionis in 2020 around the firm’s Allo-Glue small molecule protein degradation platform, invested in the company’s new funding round. (Also see "Deal Watch: Vir Partnering With Alnylam, WuXi On Coronavirus Treatments" - Scrip, 5 March, 2020.)
i2O Therapeutics, Inc.; Cambridge, MA	The company, which is developing oral biologic products based on its proprietary ionic liquid platform, disclosed in a Form D filed with the SEC on 11 October that it has raised $33.5m of a planned $42m financing, including $26m in new money and $7.5m in conversion of debt. i2O partnered with Janssen Biotech Inc./Janssen Pharmaceutical Cos. in January 2022 to investigate the oral delivery of macromolecules. (Also see "Deal Watch: J&J Begins 2022 With Trio Of Technology Alliances" - Scrip, 7 January, 2022.) The firm partnered with Sanofi in 2021. (Also see "Deal Watch: BMS Looks To Molecular Templates’ Engineered Toxin Bodies In Cancer" - Scrip, 15 February, 2021.)
Alto Neuroscience; Los Altos, CA	A year after it came out of stealth mode with $40m in seed and series A funding, Alto said on 25 October that it closed a $35m series B round to progress the company’s artificial intelligence-enabled brain biomarker platform for the development of precision psychiatry drugs. (Also see "Finance Watch: 2021 Biopharma VC Funding Tops Full-Year 2020 Total" - Scrip, 19 October, 2021.) Alto will also advance its lead clinical programs into Phase IIb clinical trials in major depressive disorder with data expected in early 2024; Phase IIa results are anticipated in early 2023.
PIC Therapeutics, Inc.; Natick, MA	PIC will take its lead cancer drug candidate – a small molecule allosteric protein translation modulator targeting eIF4E – into clinical studies in advanced metastatic breast cancer with the proceeds of a $35m series A round announced on 19 October. The company is developing drugs that target cancer signaling pathways by selectively impacting oncogene protein production by altering the pre-initiation complex (PIC) that drives mRNA translation. PIC believes its modulation approach to eIF4E will drive apoptosis, or cancer cell death, while sparing normal cells.
Anokion SA; Cambridge, MA and Lausanne, Switzerland	Anokion, which aims to treat autoimmune diseases by developing therapies that restore normal immune tolerance, said on 18 October that Pfizer Inc. invested $35m in the company through the Pfizer Breakthrough Growth Initiative. Pfizer executives will join Anokion’s scientific advisory board and take an observer seat on the firm’s board of directors. Anokion also will benefit from Pfizer’s expertise as it develops KAN-101 for celiac disease, which will move into a Phase II clinical trial during the second half of 2022. The company closed a $40m series B round in September 2019. (Also see "Finance Watch: SpringWorks, Satsuma Launch IPOs; BioNTech Filing Shows US-China Trade War Impact" - Scrip, 12 September, 2019.)
Mablink Bioscience; Lyon, France	The developer of next-generation antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) to treat cancer revealed a €31m ($30.3m) series A round led by Sofinnova Partners and Merieux Equity Partners on 14 October. Mablink’s proprietary linkers mask the cytotoxic molecules in its ADCs, giving the ADCs more time to stay in the body and kill cancer cells but with improved tolerability. The company will use its series A funding to take lead candidate MBK-103 into the clinic for solid tumors, including ovarian cancer, and build up its ADC pipeline.
Vita Therapeutics, Inc.; Baltimore	Vita closed a $32m series A round in June 2021 and announced a $31m series B round on 12 October to fund its development of cell therapies for muscular dystrophies and cancer. (Also see "Finance Watch: Insilico Raises $255m To Take AI-Discovered Drugs Into The Clinic" - Scrip, 23 June, 2021.) The series B proceeds will allow the company to advance it lead preclinical asset VTA-100 for limb-girdle muscular dystrophy (LGMD2A) to the clinic within the next 18 months, fund development of VTA-120 for facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy(FSHD) and expand its discovery pipeline.VTA-100 and VTA-120 are autologous treatments that combine gene correction with induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) technology to repair and replace muscle cells. A third asset, VTA-300, is an immunotherapy that combines proprietary chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) technology and gene editing for an undisclosed indication.
SURGE Therapeutics, Inc.; Cambridge, MA	The company said on 17 October that it completed a $26m series A financing to accelerate development of its SURGE intraoperative immunotherapy approach, expand its team and initiate clinical trials for its injectable biodegradable hydrogel. SURGE Therapeutics is developing immunotherapies that can be injected directly into the site of tumor resection with the goal of improving cancer survival and the standard of care.
Xentria, Inc.; Chicago	Xentria announced a $25m equity financing on 18 October to fund its development of treatments for rare diseases, immunologic disorders and oncological conditions. The company is evaluating XTAMB-16, a chimeric human-murine IgG1 anti-TNF monoclonal antibody, as a treatment for sarcoidosis. Xentria completed a Phase I trial in healthy volunteers and plans to initiate a study in sarcoidosis patients in early 2023.
Micreos BV; The Hague, The Netherlands	The company, which is developing anti-infective products that are alternatives to antibiotics, said on 25 October that it secured €25m ($24.9m) in new funding to support ongoing development of its endolysin platform for targeted killing of unwanted bacteria. The financing will support growth of the firm’s Gladskin skin care line for inflammatory skin conditions, such as acne, rosacea and eczema. It also will fund the development of endolysins against staphylococci for bloodstream infections, atopic dermatitis, diabetic foot ulcers and cutaneous T-cell lymphoma. Micreos last raised €32m a year ago. (Also see "Finance Watch: Exo Raises $78m To Advance Exosite-Targeting Small Molecules" - Scrip, 5 October, 2021.)
Empyrean Neuroscience, Inc.; New York and Cambridge, UK	The start-up launched on 18 October with $22m in series A funding to develop neuroactive compounds for neuropsychiatric and neurologic disorders. Through precision engineering of the fungal and plant genome, Empyrean is identifying novel therapeutic candidates. The company’s pipeline includes fungal alkaloids, cannabinoids and other neuroactive compounds, such as N,N-Dimethyltryptamine (DMT), for the treatment of major depressive disorder (MDD), post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), neurologic disorders, substance abuse and dependence, and chronic pain. IND-enabling studies of a genetically engineered encapsulated mushroom drug product are under way, and Empyrean plans to take it into the clinic for MDD in 2023. The company’s CEO is Usman “Oz” Azam, who previously was CEO of Tmunity Therapeutics Inc. and before that was global head of cell and gene therapies at Novartis.
Amplifica Holdings Group Inc.; San Diego	Amplifica said on 24 October that it closed an $11.8m series A preferred stock financing to fund development of proprietary compounds for the treatment of alopecia in men and women. The company has two first-in-class signaling molecules that stimulate dormant hair follicle stem cells to regrow hairs, AMP-303 and AMP-506, and plans to initiate its first clinical program in 2023.

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