US-based orphan disease drug developer PhaseBio closed a $34m series D round on Wednesday that included pharmaceutical firms AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson.
Cormorant Asset Management, Rock Springs Capital, Mountain Group Partners, New Enterprise Associates (NEA), Hatteras Venture Partners, Syno Capital and Fletcher Spaght Ventures also took part. Johnson & Johnson invested through Johnson & Johnson Innovation – JJDC.
PhaseBio is working on treatments for orphan diseases and in particular cardiopulmonary disorders that affect the lungs and heart that will be based on its elastin-like polypeptide (ELP) technology, which in turn relies on synthesised biopolymers.
The series D proceeds will fund work on PhaseBio’s lead drug candidate, PB2452, which is in phase 1 clinical trials for patients on the blood thinning medicine ticagrelor who experience major bleeding.
The company also intends to advance PB2452 into phase 2 trials for a heart condition known as pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) that are expected to commence in the third quarter of 2018.
PhaseBio CEO Jonathan Mow said: “We look forward to the readout of data from the phase 1 study of PB2452, exploring partnership opportunities for our drug products outside of the US and dosing patients in the phase 2 study of our second product candidate, PB1046, in patients with PAH shortly.
“In addition, we plan to continue to leverage our ELP technology to expand our development pipeline.”
The round included the conversion of existing promissory notes, likely the $14.7m in convertible note financing PhaseBio raised from AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson Innovation – JJDC, NEA, Hatteras Venture Partners, Fletcher Spaght and Syno Capital in January 2017.
Incorporating the 2017 financing into the latest round, PhaseBio would have raised a total of $139m, $48.4m of which came in a series B round featuring JJDC and Astellas Venture Management, the corporate venturing arm of pharmaceutical company Astellas, which closed in 2012.
NEA, Hatteras Venture Partners and Fletcher Spaght Ventures also took part in the series B round, returning for a $40m series C in 2015 that as led by AstraZeneca and also backed by Johnson & Johnson Innovation – JJDC.