US-headquartered, bacteria-based drug developer Vedanta Biosciences has received $27m in a series C round that included pharmaceutical companies Bristol-Myers Squibb and PureTech Health.
The round also featured philanthropic organisation Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, investment firm Rock Springs Capital, investment manager Invesco Asset Management and venture capital firm Seventure Partners.
Founded by PureTech in 2010, Vedanta is looking to develop drugs that isolate specific bacterial strains from the human microbiome in order to treat diseases that are caused by the immune system attacking the body’s central nervous system.
The financing will be used to advance Vedanta’s product candidates, which include treatments for food allergies, certain cancers and clostridium difficile infection.
The company raised $50m from PureTech, Rock Springs, Invesco and Health For Life Capital in 2016, and received an undisclosed amount of funding from Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation in July 2018.
Bernat Olle, Vedanta’s co-founder and chief executive, said: “We are pleased to have the support of our new and existing investors as we continue to build on our leadership position in the microbiome field.
“We have demonstrated that rationally-defined bacterial consortia as a new drug modality can be safe, well-tolerated, and have favourable pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics in humans.”