UK-based biopharmaceutical company SuperX raised $11m in a series A round on Thursday that featured Johnson & Johnson Innovation – JJDC, the corporate venturing arm of pharmaceutical firm Johnson & Johnson (J&J).
The round was led by Medicxi, the life sciences-focused venture capital firm that manages a $230m fund backed by limited partners including J&J and peer GlaxoSmithKline.
Founded in 2016, SuperX emerged out of stealth mode last week. It is working antibodies with anticoagulant properties that could be used to treat conditions such as acute coronary syndrome, which is characterised by a sudden reduction of blood flow to the heart.
SuperX, located on the Babraham Research Campus near Cambridge, operates as a virtual biotech developer in that it has no internal operations and instead outsources the drug discovery and development process to other providers, many of which are based on the same campus.
The company was co-founded by Trevor Baglin, consultant at Cambridge University Hospitals, as well as Jim Huntington, professor at Cambridge Institute for Medical Research, and Medicxi partner David Grainger.
SuperX’s management team, which also includes Bob Schroff and Jo Davies, previously established XO1, the virtual biopharmaceutical company acquired by J&J subsidiary Janssen Pharmaceuticals in 2015.
Earlier this month, Baglin and Huntington also attracted $17.5m in series A capital for their Cambridge University spinout, a haemophilia-focused drug developer called Apcintex.