Emerging Companies

Exo: expanding the universe of druggable enzymes

Exo debuted Wednesday with $25 million in series A funding to broaden the universe of druggable enzymes and improve drug selectivity by developing small molecules against non-catalytic, non-allosteric sites. Exo Therapeutic Inc., which is backed by...

Vigil: restoring the vigilance of microglia

Incubated by Atlas Venture and led by former Ipsen CBO Ivana Magovčević-Liebisch, Vigil launched last week with $50 million in series A financing to advance two TREM2 agonists in-licensed from Amgen in rare microgliopathy indications. “We’ve...

With crossover funding already in place, Stagliano’s Neuron23 exits stealth with programs in neurology, systemic immune disease

After two years in stealth mode, Neuron23 has emerged with $113.5 million in two venture rounds that will support development of programs sourced from a German biotech against two targets implicated in...

Launching with $81M, Third Rock’s Faze is latest biotech seeking to unravel biomolecular condensates biology

Research into biomolecular condensates is gaining momentum with Third Rock launching the third company in the past month that aims to tackle the emerging space. On Thursday, the firm launched Faze Medicines Inc. to develop therapeutics targeting the...

Remix: targeting RNA modulating complexes

Start-up Remix aims to use its $81 million in seed and series A funding to correct disease-causing RNA dysregulation.  President and CSO Peter Smith founded Remix Therapeutics Inc. last year as an entrepreneur in residence...

How D3 Bio is building its biomarker-driven pipeline

George Chen’s D3 Bio is prioritizing  its internal pipeline so it can be choosy about in-licensed assets. The Shanghai company unveiled a $200 million series A round on Nov. 17 that was backed...

Tallac: linking antibodies to DNA-triggered innate immunity

Tallac debuted last week with a $62 million series A round to advance a pipeline of systemically delivered antibody conjugates designed to trigger innate immunity against cancer.  The tranched round...

Sofinnova’s Papiernik, Costa and Roche alum Garibaldi carve orphan neurology play Noema out of the pharma’s assets

Five years after Sofinnova Partners’ Antoine Papiernik first connected with Roche neurology veteran George Garibaldi, the pair have teamed up with Luigi Costa to launch orphan neurology company...

Spotlight: solving CRISPR’s delivery challenges with RNPs

Spotlight emerged from stealth on Monday with a $30 million series A round led by GV and a platform that could help address the challenge of systemically delivering CRISPR-based gene editing therapies...

Building Resilience into U.S. biomanufacturing

In addition to building manufacturing infrastructure across multiple modalities, Resilience plans to offer its clients standardized protocols and consulting services that could help cut down on production...

SV Health-incubated Catamaran debuts with $42M to develop CAR NK pipeline

Catamaran debuted Monday with a $42 million series A round to advance a pipeline of allogeneic CAR NK cell therapies that seed investor SV Health hopes can “democratize access to cell therapy.”  SV’s Houman Ashrafian...

Umoja launches with $53M round to test cell therapy cocktails that expand CAR T cells within patients

Umoja’s assembly of a three-step platform could allow the newly launched start-up to create off-the-shelf cell therapy cocktails that expand CAR T cells within patients to treat solid tumors or hematologic malignancies. Named for a...

Led by ElevateBio’s Finer, LifeEDIT is pursuing novel enzymes for gene editing

LifeEDIT debuted with undisclosed funding from ElevateBio and former parent company AgBiome this week to develop novel RNA-guided nucleases and base editors that could offer broader genome access than...

InterVenn: liquid biopsy diagnostics based on glycoproteins

InterVenn is tapping the glycoproteome for new markers for blood-based cancer diagnostics and using machine learning to accelerate the biomarker discovery process.  The company announced Monday that...

Ex-Mavupharma execs reunite at Inipharm to build liver disease pipeline

Inipharm debuted Wednesday with $35 million in series A funding, a team of Mavupharma veterans and a small molecule portfolio targeting an enzyme that is upregulated across a handful of liver diseases. ...