Pfizer Ventures, pharmaceutical firm Pfizer’s corporate venturing unit, has co-led a $49m series A round for US-based genetic medicine startup Triplet Therapeutics that was revealed when the latter emerged from stealth yesterday.
The round was co-led by healthcare investment firm MPM Capital and included care provider Partners Healthcare’s Partners Innovation Fund and Alexandria Venture Investments, a vehicle for life sciences real estate investment trust Alexandria Real Estate Equities.
Investment firm Invus and venture capital firm Atlas Venture rounded out the investors, the latter having co-founded Triplet in 2018, providing $10m in seed funding at the same time.
Triplet is developing treatments for repeat expansion disorders, a class of genetic disorders that includes Huntington’s disease, spinocerebellar ataxias and myotonic dystrophy.
The company is focusing on the DNA damage response pathway, which drives the cause and progression of the diseases. The series A funds will support natural history studies and the advancement of its initial drug candidates into investigational new drug-enabling studies.
Nessan Bermingham, co-founder, president and chief executive of Triplet, said: “We are excited to launch Triplet today to transform the treatment of repeat expansion disorders.
“This milestone would not have been possible without the contributions of thousands of patients, whose participation in genetic research has enabled us to build a fundamentally new understanding of the cause of these diseases. With this financing we are positioned to rapidly advance our initial development candidates toward the clinic for patients.”
Pfizer Ventures partner Laszlo Kiss has taken a seat on the company’s board of directors, as have MPM Capital partner Shinichiro Fuse and Jean-François Formela, a partner at Atlas Venture who is also Triplet’s chairman.
Kiss said: “This group of severe genetic disorders represents an area of high unmet medical need, and we look forward to working with Triplet’s leadership team as they reimagine the potential treatment paradigm for patients with rare diseases.”
