GRO Biosciences (GRObio), a biotechnology company leveraging synthetic biology to expand the amino acid alphabet and deliver on the promise of protein therapeutics, today announced the closing of an oversubscribed $60.3 million Series B financing. This round was co-led by new investors Atlas Venture and Access Biotechnology. And previous investors including Leaps by Bayer, Redmile Group, Digitalis Ventures and Innovation Endeavors also participated.
In connection with the funding, Kevin Bitterman, PhD, Partner at Atlas Venture and Dan Becker, MD, PhD, Managing Director at Access Biotechnology, have joined the Company’s Board of Directors. The Series B funding round brings the total capital raised by GRObio to over $90 million.
The proceeds from the funding round will be used to advance the company’s lead program into the clinic for the treatment of refractory gout, to broaden the GRObio pipeline, and to expand its genomically recoded organism (GRO) platform for scalable production of therapeutics incorporating multiple non-standard amino acids (NSAAs).
GRObio’s lead program ProGly-Uricase is being developed for the treatment of severe, refractory gout, a type of arthritis that causes debilitating inflammation in joints due to excessive accumulation of uric acid. And the only therapy available to patients who do not respond to front-line treatments is a uricase enzyme that breaks up uric acid crystal deposits and reduces circulating uric acid levels. But most patients receiving uricase therapy rapidly develop anti-drug antibodies (ADAs) that clear the enzyme from circulation, compromising safety and efficacy and leaving patients without treatment options.
ProGly-Uricase is a proprietary uricase enzyme integrating the company’s ProGly NSAAs to prevent the emergence of ADAs and enable patients with severe, refractory gout to maintain long-term effective control of serum uric acid levels. And the Series B funding round enables the company to rapidly demonstrate proof of concept for ProGly-Uricase in a clinical study of human subjects with elevated uric acid levels.
ProGly NSAAs have sugar molecules called glycans that confer precise control over the immune response to proteins. And the glycans in ProGly NSAAs educate the immune system to recognize the underlying therapy as a self protein rather than a foreign protein, preventing an immune response. And the technology is immediately extensible to a wide array of immunogenic therapies beyond uricase. ProGly therapies are also being developed for treating and preventing autoimmune disease without broadly suppressing the immune system by conferring highly specific tolerance to disease-causing autoantigens.
KEY QUOTES:
“We are thrilled to partner with new investors Atlas Venture and Access Biotechnology, whose participation complements the continued support of our existing investors. Having proved our therapeutic approach preclinically and demonstrated scalability of our GRO platform, we have assembled the ideal team to advance GRObio to a clinical-stage company. This financing enables us to acquire valuable clinical efficacy data in gout, while expanding our platform to demonstrate the first scalable production of proteins with multiple NSAAs, including simultaneous incorporation of drug, immune recruitment, and tissue-targeting payloads.”
– Dan Mandell, PhD, Chief Executive Officer of GRObio
“GRObio has built the industry-leading platform for discovery and production of therapeutics with non-standard amino acids. The Company has a clear and differentiated path to multiple commercial opportunities, starting with the pressing unmet need in severe, refractory gout. Atlas Venture is excited to partner with this outstanding team and to bring this revolutionary technology to the clinic.”
– Kevin Bitterman, PhD, Partner at Atlas Venture
“GRObio’s ProGly programs offer novel solutions to patients with few, if any, viable treatment options. By partnering with GRObio we look forward to bringing significant improvements in quality of life to patients in need across the full range of indications accessible to the GRO platform.”
– Dan Becker, MD, PhD, Managing Director at Access Biotechnology
