Ray's upscaled Series B, and other biofinancings

This week's crop of private financings for biotechs includes nine-figure rounds for Ray Therapeutics and Tortugas, with Serif and Alloy also in on the action.

Ray musters $125m for vision-restoring therapies

Berkeley, California biotech Ray Therapeutics, a specialist in the development of optogenetic therapies for eye disorders, has closed its Series B, raising $125 million to fund clinical trials of its candidates for retinitis pigmentosa (RP), Stargardt disease, and geographic atrophy (GA).

Lead candidate RTx-015 is in the phase 1 ENVISION trial in RP, comparing an intravitreal injection of the drug into one eye to the other, untreated eye in 10 patients. The treatment introduces light-sensitive proteins into retinal ganglion cells, in a bid to restore their sensitivity to light. The new cash, which comes after Ray raised $100 million in a Series A in 2023, will also go towards trials of a second candidate – retinal ON-bipolar cell-targeting RTx-021 – in Stargardt and GA.

The round was led by Janus Henderson Investors, with participation from additional new investors Adage Capital Management, Franklin Templeton, Invus, and Marshall Wace, along with existing backers including the venture capital arms of MSD and Novo Nordisk.

Neurology specialist Tortugas launches with licensed assets

Former Sage executives Jeff Jonas and Al Robichaud have a new startup – Tortugas Neuroscience – that starts life with four drug candidates licensed from Japan's Eisai and China's Hansoh Pharmaceutical, all of which are already in mid-stage clinical development.

Hansoh has contributed TRTL-107, a D2/D3 partial agonist and 5-HT2A antagonist in development for schizophrenia, and GABA receptor-positive allosteric modulator TRTL-913 for tinnitus. Eisai's candidates are GAT-1 inhibitor TRTL-729 for focal epilepsy and a PDE9 inhibitor, TRTL-118, for reversible encephalopathies.

Framingham, Massachusetts-based Tortugas said the $106m million seed and first-round financing will fund phase 2 trials of the lead schizophrenia and tinnitus candidates. It was led by founding investor Cure Ventures, with participation from The Column Group and AN Venture Partners.

Flagship decloaks modified DNA startup Serif Bio

Flagship Pioneering has committed $50 million in funding for a newly launched biotech, Serif Biomedicines, that is devoted to the development of 'modified DNA' therapies, described as bringing together "the best features of mRNA and gene therapy, while mitigating their limitations."

Serif's platform is based on a technology that reshapes the structural and chemical form of DNA so that it can express genes "safely, durably, and programmably" inside cells without modifying their genomes, and unlike other modalities has the potential for re-dosing. The company, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, intends to focus its drug discovery efforts initially on rare diseases and immune programming.

A preclinical study of the platform, which has been five years in development, will be presented at a future scientific meeting and demonstrate tolerability in non-human primates and sustained gene expression after intravenous infusion.

Biotech 'ecosystem' firm Alloy raises $40m

Finally this week, Boston-based Alloy Therapeutics – which provides AI and machine learning-powered technologies to companies engaged in the discovery, development, and manufacture of drugs like antibodies, bispecifics, genetic medicines, and cell therapies – has completed a $40 million Series E that it says has raised its valuation above the $1 billion mark.

Alloy said it will use the proceeds to expand its discovery and preclinical/clinical services and refine the AI and data tools that underpin what it calls its "biotechnology ecosystem," which has been used by more than 200 partner companies since the company launched in 2017.

The platform has supported more than 22 projects that have advanced into clinical development, including two that are in phase 3. Investors in the Series E included 8VC, JIC Venture Growth Investments, and Echo Capital, amongst other backers.

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay