PureTech's Vedanta Biosciences adds $16.6m to Series C funding

Clinical-stage biotechnology company PureTech Health announced on Monday that its majority-owned affiliate, Vedanta Biosciences, has added $16.6m (£13.34m) to its Series C financing round, bringing the total capital raised to $62.1m.

The FTSE 250 company said the proceeds Vedanta raised from the round would further support the expansion of its broad pipeline, including two clinical-stage product candidates being advanced internally and one being advanced in collaboration with Janssen Biotech.

PureTech said its percentage ownership of Vedanta Biosciences following the financing was approximately 53.3% on a diluted basis.

“We are pleased that Vedanta continues to attract strong investor interest,” said PureTech Health president and chief of business and strategy, Bharatt Chowrira.

“This impressive $62.1 million financing will support the advancement of Vedanta's growing clinical pipeline.”

Vedanta Biosciences told the market that participants in the round included QUAD Investment Management, SV Investment Corporation, Shinhan Investment-Private Equity, Shinhan Capital-Yeollim Partners, Partners Investment, FC Capital, and SymBiosis.

They were joining the previously-announced Series C investors, which included the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Rock Springs Capital, JSR Corporation, Shumway Capital, Invesco Asset Management, Health for Life, and founder PureTech Health.

The board of Vedanta said the funding would further support the expansion of its “broad” clinical pipeline, including the recently-launched phase 1b and 2 study of ‘VE416’ in food allergy, a planned phase 1b and 2 study of ‘VE800’ and ‘OPDIVO’ (nivolumab) in advanced or metastatic cancers, and the ongoing phase 2 study of VE303 in recurrent clostridioides difficile infection.

“We welcome the support from both existing and new investors for Vedanta's expanding activities and maturing portfolio of product candidates based on rationally-defined consortia,” said chief executive officer and co-founder of Vedanta Biosciences, Bernat Olle.

Vedanta Biosciences explained that it was developing drug candidates based on consortia of natural non-pathogenic bacterial strains, designed to effect “robust and durable” therapeutic changes in a person's gut microbiota.

In contrast to faecal transplants or administration of faecal fractions, Vedanta said its consortia were defined compositions of bacteria manufactured from pure, clonal cell banks, bypassing the need to rely on direct sourcing of faecal donor material of inconsistent composition.