Ambrosia's sweet $100m round, and other biofinancings

Obesity drug developer Ambrosia Biosciences has closed an impressive $100 million second round, garnering the funds it needs to advance its oral GLP-1 agonist into clinical testing.

The Series B was announced just before Eli Lilly won FDA approval for its oral GLP-1 drug Foundayo (orforglipron), which will now compete with Novo Nordisk's first-mover Wegovy (semaglutide) pill in the weight-loss market.

Boulder, Colorado-based Ambrosia is developing a portfolio of small-molecule candidates for cardiometabolic diseases like obesity and diabetes, and also has agonist programmes targeting GIP and amylin. The proceeds of the round will support the development of those as well as initial clinical testing of its GLP-1 candidate. The company maintains that its drug delivery approach, focused on structural biology and computational chemistry, will deliver " best-in-class…molecules with differentiated pharmacology to support both standalone therapies and strategic combinations."

The financing was co-led by new investors Blue Owl Healthcare Opportunities, Redmile, and Deep Track Capital. Existing backers BVF Partners and Boulder Ventures also joined in, alongside new supporters Janus Henderson Investors, Samsara BioCapital, and an unnamed institutional investor.

Other recent private rounds

US-Chinese biotech Pinnacle Medicines, a specialist in oral peptide therapeutics, raised $89 million in a Series B co-led by LAV and Foresite Capital, with buy-in from Quan Capital, Hankang Capital, RA Capital Management, Logos Capital, and existing investors including OrbiMed.

The company is developing what it describes as a " new generation" of peptide medicines designed to deliver biologic-level safety and efficacy with the convenience of oral dosing. All of its drug candidates are still in the early stages of development, and its covers indications including asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), inflammatory bowel disease, atopic dermatitis, and cardiometabolic disorders like obesity.

Cambridge, UK-based Immutrin completed a series A, raising £65 million ($87 million) to fund the development of its antibody-based therapy for ATTR cardiomyopathy, a serious and often fatal form of amyloidosis, through to proof-of-concept. The drug binds to amyloid fibrils and is engineered to deplete amyloid deposits in tissue via a targeted and coordinated immune response, according to the company.

The round was led by Frazier Life Sciences with participation from F-Prime, Qiming Venture Partners, SR One and founding investors Cambridge Innovation Capital and Cambridge Enterprise Ventures.

Finally, New York's Gilgamesh Pharma – a spinout company formed when AbbVie bought Gilgamesh Pharmaceuticals and its psychedelic drug bretisilocin for major depressive disorder (MDD) for $1.2 billion last year – has closed a $60 million Series A in its first raise as a new company.

Its main focus now is blixeprodil (GM-1020), a non-competitive glutamate NMDA receptor antagonist for MDD that recently had positive results in a phase 2 trial. The new funding will fund further development of that drug and also support the start of phase 1 trials of an ibogaine analogue, κ-opioid receptor (KOR) agonist GM-3009, with potential as a treatment for opioid use disorder. The Series A financing was led by Satori Neuro, alongside participation from new and existing institutional investors, including Prime Movers Lab.

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