MRL Ventures and AbbVie Ventures, the respective corporate venturing units of pharmaceutical firms Merck & Co and AbbVie, co-led a $23m series A round for US-based biotech company Rheostat Therapeutics yesterday.
The round featured Amgen Ventures, the corporate venturing arm of pharmaceutical company Amgen, Alexandria Venture Investments, the strategic investment division of life sciences real estate investment trust Alexandria Real Estate Equities, and medical research group Mayo Clinic.
Venture capital firm SV Health Partners and Dementia Discovery Fund (DDF), a strategic investment fund backed by pharmaceutical firms Biogen, GlaxoSmithKline, Johnson & Johnson, Eli Lilly, Pfizer and Takeda, completed the funding.
Rheostat develops treatments for rare diseases which attack the nervous system and cause cognitive impairment, like Parkinson’s disease.
As part of the funding, Reza Halse, president at MRL Ventures, and John Gustofson, managing director at AbbVie Ventures, will join the company’s board of directors.
Joshua Resnick, interim CEO of Rheostat, said: “Mitophagy and autophagy represent a fundamental, powerful node of biology with the real potential to improve the lives of patients suffering from a range of neurodegenerative diseases and senescence.”