Kallyope, a US-based company developing drugs that focus on the gut-brain axis, received $66m yesterday in a series B round featuring Illumina Ventures, the corporate venturing subsidiary of genomics technology producer Illumina.
Alexandria Venture Investments, the venture capital arm of real estate investment trust Alexandria Real Estate Equities, also participated, as did Lux Capital, The Column Group, Polaris Partners, Euclidean Capital and Two Sigma Ventures.
Kallyope is working on therapeutics based on the hormonal and neural circuits that connect the gut and the brain, using a combination of genetic sequencing, bioinformatics, neural imaging, human genetics, cellular and molecular biology.
The drugs would address defects in the gut-brain axis that have been linked to metabolic and gastrointestinal diseases and central nervous system disorders such as autism or Parkinson’s Disease.
Kallyope had previously raised $44m that was disclosed when the company launched in 2015. The cash was provided by Illumina Ventures, Alexandria Venture Investments, Lux Capital, Polaris Partners, Column Group and Tony Evnin, a partner at VC firm Venrock.
Nancy Thornberry, chief executive of Kallyope, said: “We have had two highly productive years since launch, assembling a world-class team, establishing our state-of-the-art technology platform, and initiating several drug discovery programs.
“The series B financing gives us significant runway to continue to advance our innovative research and unlock the broad potential of the gut-brain axis. We are now poised to become the pre-eminent player in this promising, emerging area of biology.”