Mirador’s massive $400m first round, and other financings

If any more evidence were needed of a bounceback in venture financing for biotechs after a dip in 2023, the $400 million first round just announced by Mirador Therapeutics should suffice.

The company – led by Mark McKenna, formerly chief executive of Prometheus Bio, which was sold to MSD for $10.8 billion last year – is focused on the development of precision medicines for immunological, inflammatory, and fibrotic diseases; initially, skin, lung and gastrointestinal diseases.

For now, Mirador isn’t disclosing the specific diseases or drug targets it wants to address, but it does anticipate advancing multiple programmes into clinical testing next year. The company’s Mirador360 drug discovery platform combines human genetics and data science, drawing on millions of patient molecular profiles.

The Series A is a colossal and potentially record-breaking round for a company whose drug candidates remain in preclinical development. It was led by venture capital firm ARCH Venture Partners, with other prominent biotech investors participating, including OrbiMed, Fairmount, Fidelity Management, and Sanofi Ventures.

Mirador, meanwhile, was just the largest of a series of big private rounds in the past week, which also included a $150 million Series A for T-cell engager (TCE) start-up Clasp Therapeutics (see our article here).

There were two other $150 million-plus rounds, including Capstan Therapeutics, which raised $175 million in a Series B led by RA Capital Management and new investors Forbion, Johnson & Johnson Innovation, Mubadala Capital, Perceptive Advisors, and Sofinnova Investments.

The proceeds will be used to carry out proof-of-concept clinical testing for Capstan’s in vivo CAR-T therapy CPTX2309 for autoimmune disorders, as well as other pipeline projects. The therapy delivers an mRNA encoded for an anti-CD19 CAR to CD8-expressing T-cells, and is part of a shift towards in vivo or 'in situ' CAR-Ts that do away with the need to harvest, modify, and grow cells outside the body.

Existing backers also bought in, including Bristol Myers Squibb, Eli Lilly, Pfizer Ventures, Novartis Venture Fund, Leaps by Bayer, Alexandria Venture Investments, Polaris Partners, and Vida Ventures.

Engrail Therapeutics, meanwhile, enticed $157 million out of investors in a Series B that will support its pipeline of drugs for neuropsychiatric and neurodevelopmental disorders, headed by GABAA positive allosteric modulator (PAM) ENX-102 in phase 2 for generalised anxiety disorder.

ENX-102 is being tested in the ENCalm study and is designed to show efficacy without the side effects that can limit the use of other GABA-acting anxiety drugs, like benzodiazepines. Results are due later this year.

The round was co-led by new investors F-Prime Capital, Forbion, and Norwest Venture Partners, with backup from RiverVest Venture Partners, Red Tree Venture Capital, abrdn, Ysios Capital, Longwood Fund, and Eight Roads Ventures, as well as founding investor Pivotal Life Science.

Already-listed Enliven Therapeutics, which develops small-molecule kinase inhibitors for cancer, revealed plans to raise $90 million through a private investment in public equity (PIPE) financing with participation from new and existing investors, including Commodore Capital, Fairmount, Venrock Healthcare, Rock Springs Capital, Logos Capital, Woodline, and Acuta Capital, amongst others.

The cash will be used for further clinical development of Enliven’s two lead candidates, BCR-ABL inhibitor ELVN-001 for chronic myeloid leukaemia (CML) and HER2 inhibitor ELVN-002 for breast and colorectal cancer, which should generate phase 1 data later this year and in 2025, respectively.

Finally, immuno-oncology company Nouscom closed an extended $82 million third round, which has grown from an initial $72 million reported last November – that will fund the development of its neoantigen cancer vaccine portfolio. Angelini Ventures helped to grow the total with a $7.6 million contribution, joining other investors, including Andera Partners, Bpifrance, and M Ventures.

Leading Nousom’s pipeline is off-the-shelf vaccine NOUS-209, which targets 209 shared neoantigens and is being tested alongside MSD’s checkpoint inhibitor Keytruda (pembrolizumab) in a phase 2 trial involving metastatic colorectal cancer patients whose tumours have mismatch repair/microsatellite instability mutations.