North Carolina-Based Gene Therapy Startup Bags $81.5 Million in Series B Funding

StrideBio, an emerging gene therapy startup, announced on March 16th that the company is setting itself up for exponential growth after closing on a Series B $81.5 million round of financing.

The funding backed by Hatteras Venture Partners and financed by Pontifax, Octagon Capital, Sarepta Therapeutics among many others supports the expansion of StrideBio’s proprietary structure-inspired adeno-associated viral (AAV) vector engineering platform (STRIVE), foster operational growth, and build on their infrastructure. What sets STRIVE apart from other competitors is its ability to create differentiated capsids that can minimize the present limitations of first-generation gene therapies.

“We are very pleased to receive such tremendous support from these top-tier healthcare investors and appreciate the confidence they have placed in our entire team,” said Sapan Shah, Ph.D., Chief Executive Officer of StrideBio. “With this additional funding secured, we will be able to translate next generation gene therapies enabled by our lead engineered capsids into the clinic to benefit patients. We are also delighted to welcome Shaan and Karen to our Board of Directors and look forward to drawing on their expertise as we enter this exciting phase of our development.”

StrideBio’s Trump Card

Gene therapy has come to the forefront in the last decade as a potential treatment option for a variety of diseases including cancer, muscular degeneration, hemophilia among many others. AAV as a mode of delivery of gene therapy is an exciting prospect but it comes with its shortcomings.

The major disadvantage of AAV-delivery is that the human body may already have neutralizing antibodies against the AAV’s which will reduce the efficacy of the viral delivery.

This is where StrideBio sets itself apart in the market. Their research has highlighted the development of AAV vectors that can evade the neutralizing antibodies (NAB) and hence increase the efficacy of the gene transfer. Additionally, their approach has the potential to reduce the requirement of multiple delivery doses.

StrideBio’s technology is based on the research conducted by founders Dr. Mavis Agbandje-McKenna, and Dr. Aravind Asokan where they used structural modeling to identify a 100 amino acid region on AAV variable region which helps the virus to evade the NAB.

“AAV vectors are proven to be one of the most effective strategies for delivering gene therapies for a variety of human diseases, but there is room for improvement,” said Shaan C. Gandhi, M.D., D.Phil., Director at Northpond Ventures.

He further added, “StrideBio’s unique approach demonstrates the potential to yield differentiated and best-in-class AAV vectors. The leadership team is highly experienced and we are very impressed with what they have accomplished in advancing their gene therapy programs to date. Northpond is proud to join StrideBio’s circle of investors and co-lead this most recent financing round.”

Strategic Collaborations

The company has been making significant strides in establishing collaborations with biopharma giants over the past couple of years.

StrideBio has entered into a $30 million upfront deal with a future payment of approximately $700 million with Takeda to unravel three targets of which one is Friedreich’s Ataxia. Takeda, which became interested in StrideBio and was one of the key sponsors in both rounds of financing, will eventually take the leads generated to clinical development.

Meanwhile, CRISPR Therapeutics without divulging much revealed they had entered into a collaboration with StrideBio based on previous positive results for in vivo gene editing programs.

Sarepta Therapeutics has also inked a $48 million deal with StrideBio and will gain complete rights to gene therapies against Rett syndrome, Dravet syndrome, Angelman syndrome, and Niemann-Pick. Sarepta also has an option to buy four other targets by coughing up an additional $42.5 million.

Based on all these promising deals, the North Carolina-based company is sure to gain a strong foothold in the gene therapy market.

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Author

Tulip Chakraborty