Nestlé Health Science, a nutritional therapy subsidiary of food and beverage company Nestlé, invested $65m in US-based biotechnology company Seres Health yesterday.
Seres secured the series D funding just one month after a $48m series C round backed by undisclosed investors.
The company previously raised $10m in a June 2014 series B round that featured healthcare researcher Mayo Clinic, Enso Ventures and Flagship Ventures. Flagship also backed Seres’ November 2013 series A round, which raised $10.5m.
Concurrently, Nestlé Health Science has also formed a partnership with Flagship Ventures through which the two will incubate startups focused on nutritional therapy.
Seres is developing a cure for clostridium difficile, a bacterial bowel infection that occurs in people with a damaged immune system. The disease kills an estimated 14,000 people each year in the US alone.
The therapy is set to enter a Phase 3 trial in early 2015 and, according to the New York Times, Seres has reportedly hinted that it could pursue an initial public offering around the same time.