22 July 2021 - - US-based microbiome company Vedanta Biosciences, Inc has closed a USD 68m Series D financing and provided a pipeline update, the company said.

The Series D financing was led by affiliates of Magnetar Capital. Other participants in the financing were new and existing investors including Verition Fund Management, Fosun Health Capital, co-founder PureTech Health, Rock Springs Capital, Skyviews Life Science, JSR Corp., SymBiosis LLC, Shumway Capital, Health for Life Capital (Seventure Partners), and other institutional investors.

The round also includes a USD 25m investment from Pfizer as part of the Pfizer Breakthrough Growth Initiative, which was announced in January 2021.

Vedanta plans to use the proceeds to advance its pipeline of defined bacterial consortia, including progressing VE303 into a Phase 3 clinical trial in patients at high risk for recurrent CDI, initiating a Phase 2 clinical trial of VE202 in mild to moderate ulcerative colitis, and continuing to advance programs in additional indications.

Vedanta Biosciences is developing a potential new category of oral therapies based on rationally defined consortia of bacteria derived from the human microbiome. All of the company's pipeline programs are wholly owned.

Vedanta Biosciences is leading the development of a potential new category of oral therapies for immune-mediated diseases using defined bacterial consortia manufactured from clonal cell banks.

The company's approach bypasses the need to rely on direct sourcing of donor fecal material of inconsistent composition, thus overcoming challenges related to safety, quality, and scalability that limit donor-derived approaches.

The clinical pipeline includes product candidates being evaluated for the treatment of C. difficile infection, inflammatory bowel diseases, advanced or metastatic cancers, and food allergy.

These investigational therapies are grounded in pioneering research published in leading journals including Science, Nature, and Cell that identified bacteria that induce a range of beneficial immune responses.

The company's platform includes what is believed to be the largest library of bacteria derived from the human microbiome, high-throughput methods for bacterial consortium design, vast datasets from human interventional studies, and capabilities for cGMP-compliant manufacturing of defined bacterial consortia.

Vedanta Biosciences controls a foundational intellectual property portfolio covering compositions of matter and methods of use for classes of bacteria that play key roles in human health.

Vedanta Biosciences was founded by PureTech Health (NASDAQ: PRTC, LSE: PRTC) and a global team of scientific co-founders who pioneered the modern understanding of the interaction between the immune system and the microbiome.

CARB-X funding for this research is sponsored by Cooperative Agreement Number IDSEP160030 from ASPR/BARDA and by awards from Wellcome Trust, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

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