April 15 Quick Takes: Co-founded by Springer and Kruse, GPCR play Tectonic raises $80M; plus AltruBio, Rapha, Benchling, BioAge, Amgen
Tectonic Therapeutic Inc. debuted with an $80 million series A round co-led by Vida Ventures, T.A. Springer, and Polaris Partners to discover and develop of GPCR-targeted therapies. Tectonic was co-founded in 2019 by Andrew Kruse and Timothy Springer, Harvard Medical School professors who are KOLs in membrane protein biochemistry and immunology. Celgene Corp. veteran Alise Reicin will lead the start-up as president and CEO. EcoR1 Capital also participated in the offering.
San Francisco Bay Area biotech AltruBio Inc. raised $63 million in a series A financing led by aMoon with participation by new investors including BVF Partners and CAM Capital. The company’s lead program is neihulizumab (AbGn-168H), which it is evaluating in steroid refractory acute graft-versus-host disease, and new President and CEO Judy Chou has brought in a new focus for the company on a PSGL-1 program for immunological diseases. ...