Ebb & Flow

TolerRx has been quietly busy since it pulled its IPO last summer. After hitting a series of milestones, the company last week announced a $30 million series D round. President and CEO Douglas Ringler said the post-money valuation is at or above that of its last private round. TolerRx wouldn’t disclose details, but it’s probably safe to assume the numbers are below the $163.8 million pre-money valuation the company was seeking in its IPO.

The public offering, which aimed to take in about $60 million, was pulled in part because of the choppy summer market. But it’s also possible that data related to TolerRx’s TRX4 anti-CD3 antibody played a part. At high doses in preclinical studies, the compound caused reactivation of a chimpanzee-specific virus similar to Epstein-Barr. In an investigator-sponsored Phase II trial in patients with Type I diabetes, many patients developed an increased level of EBV detectable in their circulation (see BioCentury, Aug. 2, 2004). ...