US-based small molecule therapeutics developer Octant Bio has secured $80m in a series B round that included Bristol Myers Squibb (BMS), the pharmaceutical firm with which it recently struck a partnership.
Life sciences investment firm Catalio Capital Management led the round, which also featured boutique investment bank Allen & Company and venture capital firms 50 Years VC and Andreessen Horowitz, the latter through its Bio Fund.
Octant has developed a drug development technology platform which combines synthetic chemistry and computation to explore proteins and cellular pathways in order to create and engineer therapeutics.
Ramsey Homsany, Octant’s co-founder and president, told Global Corporate Venturing the capital will support the entry of its two lead programmes into clinical trials, in addition to funding the development of other drug candidates and scaling its technology platform.
BMS is investing through a strategic partnership that will involve it applying Octant’s Deep Mutational Scanning technology, which measures the activity of every mutation in specific proteins, to an inflammation-related drug target.
Mike Ellis, head of small molecule drug discovery at BMS, is taking a board observer position at Octant in connection with the round, as is Catalio head of research Diamantis Xylas. George Petrocheilos, co-founder and managing partner of Catalio, is joining its board of directors.
Another Octant co-founder, CEO Sri Kosuri, is currently on leave from his position as associate professor at University of California, Los Angeles. The round lifted its overall funding to $115m, it said.
The company disclosed $30m of the total when it emerged from stealth in mid-2020. That was secured through a series A round led by Andreessen Horowitz and backed by Allen & Co, 8VC, SV Angel and assorted individuals.
Photo courtesy of Octant Bio.
