US-based antibiotics developer Forge Therapeutics closed a $15m series A round yesterday that was led by healthcare fund MagnaSci Ventures and backed by several corporate investors.
Alexandria Venture Investments, the venture capital arm of life sciences real estate trust Alexandria Real Estate Equities, also took part, as did conglomerate Red Apple Group, law firm Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati and drug producer Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma Corporation (MTPC).
The round was filled out by drug discovery partnership Evotec. Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati and MTPC, part of Mitsubishi Chemical Holdings Corporation, took part through respective subsidiaries WS Investments and MP Healthcare Venture Management.
Forge is developing small molecule inhibitors that will target metalloenzymes in order to treat superbugs – bacteria that are resistant to multiple drug treatments. The series A capital will help it take its first candidate into clinical studies.
The round was completed after Forge secured up to $8.8m in grant funding from public-private partnership Carb-X late last month. Carb-X was formed to help advance Gram-negative antibiotics, which target a strain of bacteria increasingly resistant to existing drugs.