Space pharma Varda raises $251m, and other financings
In the largest venture financing round this week, Varda Space Industries closed a $251 million financing round to help fund its ambition to manufacture medicines in orbit.
The Series D – which takes the total raised by Varda since it was set up in 2021 – is one of several biotechs that hope to set up factories that can harness the microgravity of space to alter the crystallisation process for active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) and improve their properties.
On Earth, crystallisation of large molecules like antibodies can be challenging, but the reduced sedimentation, buoyancy, and convection currents in weightlessness allow for fine-tuning of their structures that can enhance properties like shelf-life and bioavailability. In principle, it may be possible, for example, to make molecules that can currently only be administered intravenously suitable for subcutaneous injection.
El Segundo, California-based Varda is adamant that the first product made in space for use on Earth will be a pharmaceutical, and claims to be the only company in its category that has carried out six successful launches and re-entry missions bearing manufacturing capsules, with over a dozen more planned by the end of 2028.
"This round gives us the resources to increase our cadence, deepen our pharmaceutical partnerships, get closer to delivering the first medicine made in space," said the company's co-founder and president, Delian Asparouhov.
The round was led by Lux Capital and Natural Capital, with participation from Founders Fund, Khosla Ventures, Caffeinated Capital, General Catalyst, 8090 Industries, Giant Step, and Also Capital.
Other companies working on orbital manufacturing platforms include London, UK-based BioOrbit, Florida space tech firm RedWire, Lithuanian start-up Delta Biosciences, and India's Serendipity Space.
Also this week
Migraine drug developer Kallyope has changed its name to TriGemX Bio and raised $94 million in a new financing – co-led by The Column Group, TCGX, and Viking Global Investors – that will help it usher its first-in-class oral TRPM8 channel blocker elismetrep towards the market. The drug is currently in a phase 3 trial for the acute treatment of migraine, with results due in the middle of next year.
Along with the new name and cash injection, New York's TriGemX has also appointed new management in the form of chief executive Jeff Coater, who joins from The Column Group (TCG), where he continues to serve as a partner, and Aninda Katragadda, previously at Atavistik Bio, who will serve as chief financial officer.
Denmark's Breye Therapeutics' mission to develop treatments for retinal diseases has been given a leg up, to the tune of €67.5 million ($76.5 million), thanks to Novo Holdings and new investor Mission BioCapital, backed up by Sound Bioventures, the Ljungström family office, Innovestor Life Science, EIFO, Catalyze Capital, Modi Ventures, and Pappas Capital.
The Copenhagen-based biotech's lead candidate is an oral small molecule, danegaptide, which is designed to protect against retinal capillary breakdown and vascular leakage caused by chronically high glucose levels in non-proliferative diabetic retinopathy (NPDR) and is being prepared for phase 2 testing. The new money will also help it advance a P2X7 receptor antagonist for intermediate age-related macular degeneration (iAMD) in preclinical testing.
Novo Holdings and the Ljungström family office also participated in a €62.5 million ($71 million) second round in Sweden's AnaCardio, a spinout from the Karolinska Institute that is developing a therapy for heart failure based on an oral ghrelin receptor agonist, codenamed AV01, designed to improve cardiac contractility through calcium sensitisation. The new cash will help fund a phase 2b trial of the drug in heart failure with reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF), en route to a planned phase 3 programme in 2028.
Pharma company Helsinn – which is the originator of AC01 – participated in the round alongside Pureos Bioventures, Sound Bioventures, Industrifonden, Flerie and LLD Nybohov Invest AB, and new backer Innovestor Life Science.
Brand-new biotech ai3Bio has emerged from the shadows with $48 million in Series A funding and a pipeline of therapies for autoimmune diseases harvested from two other companies – Corner Therapeutics and Novasenta – that target and eliminate a type of T helper cell (Th17) and can help reset the immune system. The round was led by founding investors UPMC Enterprises and Ziff Capital Partners, backed up by Cockrell Interests and Tanis Ventures.
The Watertown, Massachusetts company's pipeline is built on two tech platforms. The first is STARx, which uses an in vivo lipid nanoparticle to deliver mRNA to trigger a targeted self-destruct process in Th17 cells. Alongside that is T Deplete, which uses a targeting antibody to recruit the body's own immune cells against the same targets. Together, the two technologies can target and eliminate Th17 cells in a single step.
