Kardigan raises $300m for cardio work, and other financings

In a bumper week for new biotech financings, debutante Kardigan ruled the roost with a $300 million first round that will support its vision of developing multiple personalised therapies for cardiovascular diseases.

Formed by former executives from MyoKardia – bought by Bristol Myers Squibb for $13.1 billion in 2020 – Kardigan says it has already curated a portfolio of "late-stage clinical candidates" that can be matched to patients who will be most likely to respond to them.

There's not much detail on those candidates at the moment, but the San Francisco and Princeton-based start-up says they will include drugs for "primary and secondary cardiomyopathies leading to heart failure," while it also intends to look at strategic licensing deals and acquisitions.

Former MyoKardia chief executive Tassos Gianakakos, who has taken the same role at Kardigan, said that current treatments for cardiovascular disease are failing to address the "global health emergency."

The start-up said its model will increase R&D efficiency and the probability of success as it follows a mission to "make cardiovascular disease curable, preventable, and no longer the leading cause of death worldwide."

At Kardigan, Gianakakos has reunited with MyoKardia's R&D leaders Jay Edelberg and Bob McDowell, who will serve as chief medical officer and chief scientific officer, respectively, at the new company.

The trio were instrumental in developing Camzyos (mavacamten), which became the first cardiac myosin inhibitor approved by the FDA in 2022 and made $484 million in sales in the first nine months of 2024 as a treatment for obstructive hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM).

The Series A financing was led by Perceptive Advisors, ARCH Venture Partners, and Sequoia Heritage.

Funding round-up

In other financing news in the last few days, Windward Bio launched in Switzerland with a $200 million Series A – led by OrbiMed, Novo Holdings, and Blue Owl Healthcare Opportunities – and a brief to develop a long-acting anti-TSLP antibody as a treatment for asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).

The antibody, called WIN378, has been licensed from China's Kelun Biotech and Harbour BioMed and has the potential to be dosed every six months. That could differentiate it from Amgen and AstraZeneca's Tezspire (tezepelumab), which is approved as a treatment for asthma and is dosed once a month. Sales of Tezspire were $843 million in the first nine months of 2024, setting it on course for blockbuster status.

North Carolina-based biotech Tune Therapeutics has raised $175 million in a Series B that will help it to take its lead epigenetic silencing drug, Tune-401, into clinical testing as a potential treatment for chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) infections. The drug has been shown in preclinical testing to switch off almost entirely the HBV DNA needed for sustained infection.

The second round financing was led by New Enterprise Associates, Yosemite, Regeneron Ventures, and Hevolution Foundation.

Hyderabad, India-based contract development and manufacturing organisation (CDMO) Aragen has raised $100 million in funding from private equity group Quadria Capital that will be used to support an expansion of its capabilities and infrastructure in order to meet "the growing demand for outsourcing services from innovators in the US and Europe."

The company's clients number around 400 worldwide and include 15 of the top 20 pharma companies.

Seattle, Washington-based immunotherapy start-up Umoja Biopharma closed an oversubscribed $100 million third round that will be deployed as it advances a series of preclinical-stage CAR-T therapies for cancer towards the clinic and continues phase 1 testing of lead candidate UB-TT170 for osteogenic sarcoma.

Double Point Ventures and DCVC Bio co-led the Series C, which comes after the company raised $210 million in a 2021 Series B and $53 million in a first round that closed in 2020.

B-cell medicines developer Be Biopharma closed a $92 million Series C that will be used to push lead therapy BE-101 for haemophilia B through proof-of-concept clinical testing and to advance a second asset, BE-102 for rare genetic disorder hypophosphatasia, which affects the development of bones and teeth, into human trials. Both are based on B-cells that have been modified to express proteins – Factor IX in the case of BE-101 and the enzyme ALP in BE-102.

The round featured new investor Nextech, alongside existing backers ARCH Venture Partners, Atlas Venture, RA Capital Management, Alta Partners, Longwood Fund, Bristol Myers Squibb, and Takeda Ventures.

Boston and New Haven, Connecticut-based Normunity raised $75 million in a second-round financing – led by Samsara BioCapital and Enavate Sciences – with participation from Pfizer Ventures and Regeneron Ventures.

Normunity's lead development programme NRM-823 is a novel T-cell engager (TCE) against an undisclosed, cancer cell-specific target that the company says is relevant to multiple solid tumours. It plans to start a phase 1 trial of the TCE in the second half of this year.

Finally, rare disease specialist Alesta Therapeutics of the Netherlands has completed a €65 million ($67 million) Series A that will support the clinical development of ALE1, an oral therapy for hypophosphatasia that it estimates affects around 50,000 people in the US and 75,000 in the EU. The drug inhibits a novel target to reduce levels of inorganic pyrophosphate (PPi), a key metabolite central to the disease's pathology.

The round was co-led by Frazier Life Sciences and Droia Ventures, with participation from Novartis Venture Fund, RTW Investments, RV Invest, Thuja Capital, and SSI Strategy.

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