Start-Ups & SMEs

Emerging Company Profile: Privately held BioPlx is a US-based platform biotech that has successfully raised more than $10m from investors with the promise of developing non-antibiotic ways to control multiple-drug resistant superbugs and other infectious diseases.

Named after a remarkable self-regenerating salamander, the new San Francisco biotech aims to unlock the potential of B-cells to be “in vivo protein factories”.

The Paris-based biotech was chosen to take the compound forward, with Merck KGaA also taking a stake in the company.

Emerging Company Profile: Monument Therapeutics’ novel approach to CNS drug development focuses on repurposing existing drugs with the aid of digital biomarkers.   

Emerging Company Profile: Scotland-based EnteroBiotix will use proceeds from a successful series A financing to advance its nascent pipeline of novel high-diversity microbial therapeutics, enhancing the gut microbiome and eventually targeting multiple indications.

Renaissance Capital expects an initial public offering surge in September; Biomedtracker data show financings for COVID-19 programs fell from Q1 to Q2; Revelation will merge with a special purpose acquisition corporation; Ascendis netted $379.3m in a follow-on offering; and Disc Medicine raised $90m in venture capital.

From a record more than 100 entries, the finalists have been selected for 12 awards, representing the best and brightest of biopharmaceutical research. 

With a CD8-targeting IL-2 mutein as its lead program, the start-up is developing cis-targeted immunotherapies that selectively target two molecules on the same immune cell for improved efficacy and safety.

The Flagship Pioneering-founded start-up will build a “Gigabase Factory” to go from idea to in vivo proof of concept within eight weeks by rapidly manufacturing and running preclinical tests for multiple constructs at once. 

New VC deals include a $60m series C-1 round for DiCE Molecules a day before it filed paperwork to support a $100m IPO and a $100m financing for China’s IONOVA Life Science. Also, RenovoRx was the 84th company to go public in the US this year and ADC Therapeutics executed a $325m royalty deal. 

The German firm intends to use the proceeds from an over-subscribed round to move its micro-RNA-132 inhibitor forward into trials for heart failure and advance its pipeline.

The preclinical start-up is identifying allosteric binders that can inhibit or activate metabolic proteins. Atavistik will focus on genetically defined diseases then test its candidates in broader populations.