Syneron raises $150m for macrocyclics, and other financings

Chinese start-up Syneron Bio has closed a $150 million second round, just four months after its $100 million first round, as it strives to carve out a position in the competitive macrocyclic peptide category.

The Beijing biotech has been set up to tap into the growing interest in macrocyclic peptides as an emerging treatment modality, filling a gap between small molecule and biologics by offering the ease of delivery of the former and the specificity and potency of the latter.

Syneron's financing is an indicator of investor interest in macrocyclic peptides and the promise of the company's approach, based on its high-throughput Synova drug discovery platform, which is powered by AI and claims to come up with drug candidates against protein targets that have resisted conventional design approaches. At the moment, its programmes are all in preclinical development, but the new funding will help it advance into the clinic.

That promise has already attracted the attention of AstraZeneca, which struck a deal with Syneron last year focusing on rare, autoimmune, and metabolic diseases that involved an upfront payment of $75 million and up to $3.4 billion in milestones and participated in the Series B.

The round was co-led by an unnamed international life sciences fund, Decheng Capital, and CDH VGC, with a long list of other participants, including a wholly owned subsidiary of the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, True Light Capital, Qiming Venture Partners, and BioTrack.

Other recent VC rounds

Sidewinder Therapeutics is preparing to start clinical testing of its lead bispecific antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) candidate for lung cancer – codenamed SWT019 – next year, thanks to a just-completed $137 million Series B. Its approach is to target receptor co-complexes on tumour cells, one specific to the cancer itself and a second used to help shuttle the ADC into the cell where it can exert its therapeutic effects.

The financing is co-led by Frazier Life Sciences and Novartis Venture Fund and backed by OrbiMed, which incubated the San Diego, California biotech, as well as Life Sciences at Goldman Sachs Alternatives, DCVC Bio, Samsara BioCapital, Longwood Fund, and Astellas Venture Management.

Our third mega-round this week comes from Cambridge, Massachusetts start-up Stipple Bio, which has emerged from the shadows with $100 million in funding from a consortium of investors led by RA Capital, a16z Bio+Health, and Nextech Invest.

Stipple's lead candidate, an ADC called STP-100 targeting a tumour-specific antigen that is designed to avoid off-target effects on healthy tissues, is due to start clinical trials next year. The new funding will also be used to develop its Pointillist platform, which identifies tumour-specific cell surface epitopes. Existing backers Emerson Collective Investments, GV, LoLa Capital Partners, and GordonMD Global Investments also joined the round.

Boston, Massachusetts-based cellular rejuvenation specialist Life Bio has added to its cash reserves with an $80 million Series B that will allow it to complete an ongoing phase 1 trial of ER-100, designed to restore the health of cells that are damaged, in two ophthalmic diseases, namely nonarteritic anterior ischemic optic neuropathy (NAION) and open-angle glaucoma.

The round – the backers of which have not been disclosed – will also support studies to see whether ER-100 or other candidates arising from the biotech's partial epigenetic reprogramming (PER) platform have potential in other indications associated with cell deterioration due to ageing.

Finally, SonoNeu announced its presence this week with $41.3 million in funding from the US Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) programme and a mission to develop a new technology platform – sonogenetics – as a non-invasive treatment for conditions such as peripheral neuropathy.

The Palo Alto, California-based company said the technology – discovered by founder Sreekanth Chalasani of the Salk Institute for Biological Sciences – can sensitise specific cell types to ultrasound by tagging them with ultrasound-responsive proteins, allowing them to be manipulated remotely. The ARPA-H award will be used to fund clinical proof-of-concept for sonogenetics in peripheral neuropathy.

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