LifeMine gets $263m for transplant drug, and other financings
US biotech LifeMine Therapeutics has raised the princely sum of $263 million in a dual financing that will be used to take a drug to prevent organ transplant rejection into mid-stage clinical development.
The Watertown, Massachusetts-based biotech, which has developed an industrialised, genomics-based discovery platform for finding new therapeutics in fungi, will use the proceeds to start a phase 2 trial of calcineurin activation inhibitor LIFE-001 in patients undergoing kidney transplants and a phase 1b study in islet cell transplants.
Calcineurin inhibition is a well-established mechanism for immune suppression, underpinning transplant rejection drugs like tacrolimus, cyclosporine, and voclosporin, which are widely used but can have major issues with organ toxicity.
LifeMine says that rather than blocking the calcineurin enzyme directly, LIFE-001 stops the enzyme from turning on in the first place. It also avoids an effect on chaperone molecules associated with conventional calcineurin inhibitors – called immunophilins – that are thought to be involved in organ-damaging side effects.
An ongoing phase 1 trial of LIFE-001 has shown "a substantially improved profile" compared to legacy calcineurin inhibitors, including "no clinically meaningful renal, metabolic, or cardiovascular safety signals," according to the company.
The financing consists of a $75 million Series D and $188 million Series E, led by Milky Way Investments and backed by new investors including Bezos Expeditions, Gates Frontier, and RA Capital Management.
The company previously raised $175 million in a third round backed by GSK – which has been using its platform since 2022 to find leads for three undisclosed drug targets – as well as a $50 million Series B in 2021 and $55 million Series A in 2017.
Other recent financing rounds
Expedition Therapeutics completed a $115 million second round led by General Atlantic that will help it to complete a phase 2 trial of EXPD-101, a DPP1 inhibitor licensed from China's Fosun Pharma that is being developed for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), explore its potential in other neutrophil-driven inflammatory diseases, and advance other DPP1-targeting candidates in its pipeline.
The San Francisco startup also said that the first patient has been dosed in its phase 2 trial of EXPD-101, which is in the same class as Insmed's Brinsupri (brensocatib), approved by the FDA last year for non-cystic fibrosis bronchiectasis (NCFB). New investors RA Capital and Vivo Capital joined the round alongside prior backers, including the venture capital units of Sanofi and Novo Nordisk.
Radiopharmaceutical developer Ratio Therapeutics has closed a $70 million Series C as it runs the phase 1/2 ATLAS trial of RTX-2358, an actinium-225 isotope-based, FAP-targeting therapy for advanced soft tissue sarcomas, and starts to prepare a second radioligand therapy for clinical testing.
The Boston biotech's latest round saw participation from existing investors Duquesne Family Office and Bristol Myers Squibb, as well as new investors Catalio Capital Management, Eli Lilly, and Wasatch Group.
Cambridge, Massachusetts biotech Vedanta Biosciences has secured $60 million in new financing – a $40 million round led by existing investors AMR Action Fund and BNP Paribas Asset Management Alts, plus $20 million in US federal funding – to support the development of VE303 for the prevention of recurrent Clostridium difficile infections (CDI).
CDI causes nearly 30,000 deaths each year in the US, and recurrent infections with the bacterium are estimated to make up 10%-15% of all hospital-treated infections. VE303 is a microbiome-based therapy that is currently in the phase 3 RESTORATiVE303 trial, with results due next year.
Finally, Scotland-based Mironid has raised £34 million ($46 million) in a Series B funding round that will support clinical development of its small-molecule therapeutics for autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease (ADPKD), a life-threatening inherited disorder affecting around 12 million people worldwide.
The Glasgow company is developing drugs that target the abnormally high levels in the kidney of cAMP – a cellular secondary messenger – which are implicated in cyst formation that characterises ADPKD, and have shown signs of efficacy in preclinical testing. It says its LoAc candidates are the only drug class directly targeting cAMP. The financing came from Scottish National Investment Bank, along with Roche Venture Fund, Epidarex Capital, Sofinnova Partners, and BioGeneration Ventures.
Photo by Logan Voss on Unsplash
