3 September 2021 - - UK-based regenerative medicine company Locate Bio has raised an oversubscribed GBP 10m of equity investment in a funding round co-led by existing shareholder Mercia Asset Management and new investor BGF, the company said.

The funding will be used to further advance Locate Bio's proprietary pipeline of regenerative orthobiologics products towards patients, with key clinical and regulatory milestones expected to catalyse growth over the next two years.

The investment brings the total funds raised by Locate Bio to over GBP 18 m. The company's lead product in development is called LDGraft, and is a low dose, controlled release rhBMP-2 for the treatment of degenerative disc disease. In September 2020, Locate Bio in-licensed multiple late-stage orthobiologics assets from the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland's University of Medicine and Health Sciences.

The acquisition of these products significantly accelerated Locate Bio's ambitions of building a world leading, diversified orthobiologics company.

Locate Bio aims to develop a suite of best-in-class technologies that address the performance limitations of existing products and enable orthopaedic surgeons to improve the lives of people suffering from debilitating conditions.

The company is making good progress against this objective and received two breakthrough device designations from the US Food and Drug Administration at the start of 2021 for CognitOss and Chondro3, a biomimetic graft for osteochondral lesions.

CognitOss is a single-stage therapy that combines the local delivery of therapeutically appropriate levels of antibiotics from a 'smart material' that is designed to be responsive to the presence of infection and promote the regeneration of bone. It is designed to treat osteomyelitis, a debilitating inflammatory bone infection.

Locate Bio is an orthobiologics company with a proprietary, regenerative medicine pipeline, delivering exciting orthobiologics products that have great disruptive potential.