Takeda Ventures
Takeda Ventures, Inc. is a venture capital arm of Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited specializing direct and fund of fund investing. Within direct investing firm specializes in seed; start up, early stage, mid stage, and mid venture capital investments, though it will consider product, target and technology opportunities at any stage. Within fund of fund investing firm specializes in venture capital funds. It may also consider follow-on rounds of investment. The firm does not invest in gene therapy or anti-infective products, medical devices, or diagnostics devices. It seeks to focus its investments in the therapeutics, including, pharmaceutical sector, in drugs and bio therapeutics with a focus on cardiovascular (heart failure, peripheral artery disease, etc.), chronic inflammatory and immune disorders (rheumatoid arthritis, systemic lupus erythematous, psoriasis, COPD and asthma), central nervous system (specifically Alzheimer's disease and schizophrenia), metabolic disorders (obesity, diabetes, and dyslipidemias), gastroenterology (inflammatory bowel disease, irritable bowel syndrome and fibrosis/cirrhosis), renal/urological disease (chronic kidney disease, acute kidney injury, etc.) oncology therapeutic domains, regenerative medicines (excluding cell therapy), novel vaccines technologies, RNA and DNA modulation, and innovative protein and peptide bio therapeutics. The firm also facilitates preclinical therapeutic discovery alliances. It typically invests in the United States, Canada, and Europe. The firm seeks to invest between $0.25 million and $5 million. It prefers to co-invest as a minority stake holder, holding less than 15% equity interest, with venture capital firms, private equity funds, angels, or institutional investors as lead investors. The firm prefers to act as a board observer in its portfolio companies. Takeda Ventures, Inc. was founded in November 2001 and is based in Palo Alto, California with additional offices in San Diego, California; Cambridge, the United Kingdom and Hersliya, Israel.
139 past transactions
ARIAD Pharmaceuticals
Acquisition in 2017
ARIAD is a Cambridge, Massachusetts-based biotechnology company focused on cancer. We are a cohesive team of talented people from diverse backgrounds with a shared vision: We seek to transform the lives of patients with breakthrough cancer medicines. This is our purpose. This is our passion. This is our promise.
Code Biotherapeutics
Seed Round in 2021
Code Biotherapeutics is a next-generation gene therapy company pioneering the development of targeted non-viral gene therapies to treat serious and life-threatening genetic diseases. Code Bio leverages its novel multivalent synthetic DNA delivery platform, 3DNA, which has been engineered to overcome many of the challenges inherent with viral-based gene therapies such as immunogenicity, size and delivery limitations, re-dosability, and manufacturing complexity. The Company is advancing an internal pipeline focused on select rare disease programs as well as establishing partnerships to take forward programs in both rare and prevalent diseases.
BioMotiv, LLC
Venture Round in 2014
BioMotiv is the mission-aligned development company of The Harrington Project for Discovery and Development. The Harrington Project, unveiled in February by University Hospitals (UH), is a first-of-its-kind $250 million initiative that promises to revolutionize how new breakthrough drugs are advanced to market. By aligning the upstream efforts of the recently created UH Case Medical Center’s Harrington Discovery Institute with the downstream development efforts of BioMotiv, The Harrington Project seeks to accelerate the therapeutic innovation process for the benefit of patients globally.
Cerevance
Series B in 2023
Cerevance is a developer of novel therapeutics intended to advance new medicines for serious neurological diseases.The company's therapeutics applies it's technology called NETSseq to reveal transcriptional and epigenetic differences between specific cell types in mature human brains, enabling healthcare providers to detect and tackle the early onset of various neurological diseases.
Portal Instruments
Venture Round in 2017
Portal Instruments, Inc., a clinical stage and medical device company, manufactures jet injectors that delivers drugs through the skin without a needle at specific depths and volumes. It develops and commercializes needle free jet injection platform for drug delivery for patients suffering from chronic disease. The company offers a precise drug concentration and viscosity agnostic technology which is compatible with pharma manufacturing processes and provides customizable disease management tools. The company was founded in 2012 and is based in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Arcellx
Series C in 2021
Arcellx is a privately held development-stage company founded in 2015 and located in Montgomery County, Maryland. The Arcellx team is devoted to providing patients with superior immune cell therapies through scientific innovation, accelerated development, and responsible patient care. Although our initial clinical focus is cancer therapy, we are committed to extending our Antigen- Receptor Complex T cell (ARC-T) therapies across a broad spectrum of human disease.
OrphoMed, Inc.
Series A in 2017
OrphoMed, Inc. develops therapies for irritable bowel syndrome with diarrhea (IBS-D), acute and chronic pain, and cystic fibrosis. Its pipeline includes ORP-101, a chemical entity designed to create a stable molecule and to confer partial μ agonist and full κ-antagonist receptor pharmacology; ORP-105, a non-addictive, centrally-acting, non-opiate analgesic; and ORP-110, a metabolically-stable, non-depletory cystic fibrosis transmembrane regulator potentiator. OrphoMed, Inc. was incorporated in 2015 and is based in San Francisco, California.
Cortexyme
Debt Financing in 2017
Cortexyme, Inc., a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company, focuses on developing therapeutics for Alzheimer’s disease and other degenerative disorders. Its lead drug candidate is COR388, an orally-administered brain-penetrating small molecule gingipain inhibitor, which is in Phase II/III for use in patients with mild to moderate Alzheimer’s disease. The company was incorporated in 2012 and is headquartered in South San Francisco, California.
VelosBio, Inc.
Series A in 2018
VelosBio, Inc., a biopharmaceutical company, develops novel antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) to treat hematological cancers and solid tumors. The company develops cancer therapies targeting receptor tyrosine kinase-like orphan receptor 1 (ROR1). Its portfolio includes VLS-101, a ROR1-directed antibody-drug conjugate for patients with hematologic and solid tumor malignancies. The company was incorporated in 2017 and is headquartered in San Diego, California. As of December 18, 2020, VelosBio, Inc. operates as a subsidiary of Merck & Co., Inc.
GammaDelta Therapeutics
Acquisition in 2017
GammaDelta Therapeutics is developing the potential of gamma delta (γδ) cells to create improved immunotherapy of cancer and other serious diseases. The company plans to exploit unique properties of tissue resident γδ T cells for effective immunotherapy.
Ambys Medicines
Series A in 2021
Ambys Medicines is working to fundamentally transform the lives of people suffering from severe liver diseases by creating breakthrough therapies capable of restoring liver function, preventing the progression of liver disease, and treating the devastating complications of liver failure.
Prosetta Biosciences, Inc.
Series D in 2015
Prosetta Biosciences, Inc., a biotechnology company, focuses on developing novel small-molecule antiviral therapeutics. Its cell-free protein synthesizing systems drug discovery platform allows for identification of small molecule drugs, which may be missed with traditional pharma screening methods. Prosetta Biosciences, Inc. was formerly known as Prosetta Corporation. The company was founded in 2002 and is based in San Francisco, California.
Presage Biosciences, Inc.
Venture Round in 2015
Presage Biosciences, Inc. is an oncology company that incorporates human efficacy data in the drug development and clinical trial processes. It offers CIVO arrayed microinjection platform that allows for simultaneous assessment of multiple drugs or drug combinations directly in a single solid tumor while still in a patient’s body to assess efficacy, resistance, and drug synergies in the tumor’s native microenvironment. The company was founded in 2008 and is based in Seattle, Washington.
ENTEROME Bioscience
Series E in 2020
Enterome is an integrated company leveraging its unique knowledge of the key functional and molecular interactions between the gut microbiome and the human body to develop targeted therapeutics.Enterome is focused on the identification of the bioactive molecules that are differentially expressed, secreted and regulated by the gut microbiome, which play a central role in the regulation of key aspects of human physiology and the immune system.
Axcelead Drug Discovery Partners, Inc.
Seed Round in 2018
Axcelead Drug Discovery Partners, Inc. provides drug discovery services. The company's services include integrated drug discovery, high-thoughput screening, and compound management. Axcelead Drug Discovery Partners, Inc. was founded in 2017 and is headquartered in Fujisawa, Japan.
LigoCyte Pharmaceuticals
Acquisition in 2012
LigoCyte is breaking new ground in the treatment of inflammatory and infectious disease. We have produced a number of novel drug compounds to modify immune responses by focusing on cell binding interactions and their role in the immune system. Immunomodulatory drugs represent one of the most exciting areas of pharmaceutical research today, addressing the disease process itself rather than simply treating the resulting symptoms. LigoCyte is advancing its proprietary products into human clinical testing, positioning the company for continued growth and success in the biotechnology industry.
Phathom Pharmaceuticals
Venture Round in 2019
Phathom Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company, focuses on developing and commercializing treatments for gastrointestinal diseases. The company has the rights in the United States, Europe, and Canada to vonoprazan, a potassium-competitive acid blocker (P-CAB) that blocks acid secretion in the stomach. It is also developing vonoprazan, which is in Phase III clinical trials for the treatment of erosive gastroesophageal reflux disease; and in combination with antibiotics for the treatment of Helicobacter pylori infection. The company was incorporated in 2018 and is based in Buffalo Grove, Illinois.
Obsidian Therapeutics, Inc.
Series A in 2017
Obsidian Therapeutics is a developer of a next-generation cell and gene therapies created to extend adoptive immunotherapy to every patient with cancer.The company's next-generation cell and gene therapies with pharmacologic operating systems provide exquisite control of protein activity in cells and create adoptive cell therapies with new functions that are under control of the treating physician using simple, safe, orally-active, marketed drugs, enabling patients to improve on the current generation of cell therapies.
OncoResponse
Venture Round in 2023
OncoResponse Inc. is an immuno-oncology company that discovers cancer immunotherapies and therapeutic antibodies against immuno-oncology targets by interrogating the human immune system. It develops human antibody derived therapeutics for the treatment of cancer. The company is based in Houston, Texas.
Univercells
Venture Round in 2015
Univercells is a One-stop-shop for high-density low-cost biomanufacturing "end-to-end" solutions, with innovative engineering able to decrease the needs for investments of over 75% and the cost of goods of up to 90%.
Univercells' technologies, aimed at low cost manufacturing of antibodies/proteins/vaccines, is based on single-use technologies, and chaining of three manufacturing steps into simulated continuous mode : cell culture under perfusion, clarification and capture.
Be Biopharma
Series B in 2022
Be Biopharma, Inc. develops therapeutics for diseases from engineered B-cells in the immune system. It can overcome the drawbacks of current cell and gene therapies, including the inability to provide multiple doses, unpredictable chemical reactions in some individuals, and the need for chemotherapy regimens prior to cell therapies that can be dangerous to patients. The company applies its technology to diseases, including cancer, autoimmune disorders, and infectious diseases. The company was incorporated in 2020 and is based in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Bridge Medicines LLC
Funding Round in 2020
Bridge Medicines LLC offers drug discovery services. It focuses on developing technologies in academic institutions from human proof-of-concept to clinical development. The company develops inhibitors of ENL-YEATS for the treatment of acute leukemias, such as acute myelogenous leukemia and a series of orally active small molecule inhibitors of activated factor XII for the treatment of hereditary angioedema and other inflammatory disorders. Bridge Medicines LLC was founded in 2016 and is based in New York, New York.
Transine Therapeutics
Seed Round in 2021
Transine Therapeutics
Oshi Health, Inc.
Series A in 2021
Oshi Health is a virtual gastroenterology (GI) clinic that diagnoses, treats and remotely monitors digestive (GI) conditions. Patients work with Oshi Health's integrated care team of gastroenterologists and GI-specialized nurse practitioners, registered dietitians, behavioral psychologists and health coaches to determine the root causes of their symptoms and use a personalized care plan that includes medication, dietary interventions and stress/anxiety reduction to get symptoms under control. This yields improved health outcomes, quality of life, satisfaction with care and workplace productivity while reducing overall healthcare cost.
Koneksa Health Inc.
Series C in 2022
Koneksa Health is a healthcare data analytics company that helps researchers incorporate emerging technologies (bio-sensors, activity trackers, mobile-based questionnaires, etc.) into their clinical studies. Their Koneksa Compare software dashboard enables the collection, visualization, and analysis of these patient-generated data sets.
Koneksa currently supports academic and life sciences researchers, expands the universe of data that can be analyzed while also removing subjective characteristics from clinical endpoints. It was founded in 2013 and is based in New York, United States.
Maverick Therapeutics
Acquisition in 2021
Maverick Therapeutics is a biotech company focused on improving the lives of patients with solid tumor cancers by developing breakthrough T cell immunotherapies with improved safety and efficacy. Their highly innovative platform, COBRA™, is the most advanced bispecific T cell engaging platform in its class, designed to safely target solid tumors with highly specific and potent activity.
BridGene Biosciences
Series A in 2021
BridGene Biosciences is a biotechnology company using cutting-edge chemoproteomic technology to discover and develop small molecules. It enables covalent small molecules to perform proteome-wide screening in live cells, which results in highly selective small molecules that drug traditionally undruggable targets.
BIOMx
Series A in 2017
BiomX discovers and develops innovative microbiome therapeutics. The Company's mission is to develop novel therapeutics for preventing and treating diseases in which microbiome imbalances have been implicated. BiomX's microbiome modulation technologies are based on the cutting-edge innovative research of its scientific collaborators: Professor Rotem Sorek, PhD and Dr. Eran Elinav, MD, PhD both of the Weizmann Institute of Science and Professor Timothy K. Lu, MD, PhD of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Ribon Therapeutics
Series C in 2021
Ribon Therapeutics, Inc. operates as biotechnology company, which develops therapeutics novel enzymes for cancer medicines. The company was incorporated in 2015 and is based in Lexington, Massachusetts.
Ambys Medicines
Corporate Round in 2018
Ambys Medicines is working to fundamentally transform the lives of people suffering from severe liver diseases by creating breakthrough therapies capable of restoring liver function, preventing the progression of liver disease, and treating the devastating complications of liver failure.
Molecular Templates, Inc.
Post in 2017
Molecular Templates Inc. (MTI) is a biopharmaceutical company with a novel protein platform for the development of new therapeutics against cancer. The company has a lead compound for melanoma that is expected to enter into clinical trials in the next two years and is developing additional compounds against a variety of other cancers.
Oshi Health, Inc.
Pre Seed Round in 2019
Oshi Health is a virtual gastroenterology (GI) clinic that diagnoses, treats and remotely monitors digestive (GI) conditions. Patients work with Oshi Health's integrated care team of gastroenterologists and GI-specialized nurse practitioners, registered dietitians, behavioral psychologists and health coaches to determine the root causes of their symptoms and use a personalized care plan that includes medication, dietary interventions and stress/anxiety reduction to get symptoms under control. This yields improved health outcomes, quality of life, satisfaction with care and workplace productivity while reducing overall healthcare cost.
Seqster, PDM Inc.
Series A in 2021
Seqster, PDM Inc. develops a software-as-a-service (SaaS) that allows the members, payers, providers, clinical research enterprise employees, foundations, and patients to import medical data from electronic health records (EHR), genetic, and fitness data from various sources. It offers Seqster, a health data management solution to collect users' EHR, DNA, and wearables data, enabling its customers to collect, own, and share their health information on their terms. The company was founded in 2016 and is based in San Diego, California.
GEXVal
Series A in 2018
GEXVal Inc. engages in research and development of drugs targeting intractable/rare diseases and related operations. The company was founded in 2018 and is based in Fujisawa, Japan.
CellCentric Ltd.
Venture Round in 2007
CellCentric’s primary programme targets a deubiquitinase (DUB) enzyme which is strongly associated with prostate cancer, a leading cause of mortality among men. The target modulates the androgen receptor pathway and can potentially combat the multiple resistance mechanisms seen with recently approved prostate cancer drugs such Xtandi and Zytiga.
The programme also has potential clinical utility in non-small cell lung, breast and colon cancer.
Maverick Therapeutics
Venture Round in 2017
Maverick Therapeutics is a biotech company focused on improving the lives of patients with solid tumor cancers by developing breakthrough T cell immunotherapies with improved safety and efficacy. Their highly innovative platform, COBRA™, is the most advanced bispecific T cell engaging platform in its class, designed to safely target solid tumors with highly specific and potent activity.
Avidity Biosciences
Series B in 2018
Avidity Biosciences, Inc. is pioneering a new class of oligonucleotide-based therapies called AOCs designed to overcome the current limitations of oligonucleotide therapies in order to treat a wide range of serious diseases. Avidity utilizes its proprietary AOC platform to design, engineer and develop therapeutics that combine the tissue selectivity of monoclonal antibodies and the precision of oligonucleotide therapies in order to access previously undruggable tissue and cell types and more effectively target underlying genetic drivers of diseases. Avidity's lead product candidate, AOC 1001, is designed to treat myotonic dystrophy type 1, and its four other muscle programs are focused on the treatment of muscle atrophy, Duchenne muscular dystrophy, facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy and Pompe disease. In addition to its muscle franchise, Avidity has development efforts focused on immune and other cell types.
Fimecs
Seed Round in 2018
FIMECS is a protein degradation technology-based drug discovery biotech focused on developing first-in-class protein degradation therapeutics for cancers and other difficult-to-treat diseases. The human body is comprised of at least 18,097 proteins.It has been revealed that 1,500 of them are related to certain diseases, nevertheless only about 300 proteins have been regarded as druggable targets by small molecule drug discovery and all the rest have been undruggable.
Cortexyme
Series B in 2018
Cortexyme, Inc., a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company, focuses on developing therapeutics for Alzheimer’s disease and other degenerative disorders. Its lead drug candidate is COR388, an orally-administered brain-penetrating small molecule gingipain inhibitor, which is in Phase II/III for use in patients with mild to moderate Alzheimer’s disease. The company was incorporated in 2012 and is headquartered in South San Francisco, California.
Egle Therapeutics
Series A in 2021
Egle Therapeutics SAS, a biotechnology company, develops immunotherapies targeting immune suppressor regulatory T-cells for oncology and autoimmune diseases. It develops Treg modulating drug pipeline, which includes computationally designed resurfaced IL-2 proprietary variants to engage or dis-engage Tregs. The company was founded in 2020 and is based in Paris, France.
Cardurion Pharmaceuticals, LLC
Venture Round in 2021
Cardurion Pharmaceuticals, LLC operates as a biotechnology company. The company was incorporated in 2017 and is based in Boston, Massachusetts.
Cortexyme
Series A in 2016
Cortexyme, Inc., a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company, focuses on developing therapeutics for Alzheimer’s disease and other degenerative disorders. Its lead drug candidate is COR388, an orally-administered brain-penetrating small molecule gingipain inhibitor, which is in Phase II/III for use in patients with mild to moderate Alzheimer’s disease. The company was incorporated in 2012 and is headquartered in South San Francisco, California.
Wave Life Sciences
Post in 2018
WaVe Life Sciences is leading a revolution in nucleic acid therapeutics and was founded on the core principle that medicines should possess precisely controlled molecular structures. We and our strategic partners are advancing a portfolio of stereopure drug candidates that target underlying biology across a wide range of human diseases.
WaVe maintains R&D facilities in Boston and Japan and was founded by two world-renowned scientific leaders, Gregory Verdine and Takeshi Wada. Dr. Verdine is an Erving Professor of Chemistry in the Harvard University Departments of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology, Chemistry and Chemical Biology, and Molecular and Cellular Biology. Dr. Wada is a professor at Tokyo University of Science, Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences and Department of Medicinal and Life Science.
Bioniz Therapeutics, Inc.
Series A in 2016
Bioniz Therapeutics, Inc., a biopharmaceutical company, focuses on discovering and developing novel peptide therapeutics for the treatment of immune diseases and cancer. The company’s pipeline include BNZ-1, a selective inhibitor of three interleukin cytokines (IL2/IL9/IL15) that are major disease drivers in HTLV-1 Associated Myelopathy (HAM), and in T-cell Leukemias; and IL-15 and IL-21 Inhibitors; and BNZ-3, an early stage asset targeting IL-4, IL-9, and IL-21 cytokines. Bioniz Therapeutics, Inc. was formerly known as Bioniz, LLC. The company was founded in 2009 and is based in Irvine, California.
Domainex Ltd.
Venture Round in 2010
Domainex Ltd is a contract research company that was established in 2001 and operates from Cambridge UK. In May 2007 Domainex merged with NCE Discovery to form a new integrated company with capabilities in biology and chemistry.
Service division offers technologies designed to clone and express challenging genes to give high-quality recombinant protein displaying functional domains of the target. We also provide computational and medicinal chemistry for the design and synthesis of candidate drugs aimed at our customers' target proteins.
Turnstone Biologics
Series D in 2021
Turnstone Biologics Inc., a biotechnology company, focuses on the development of viral immunotherapies to improve survival of people with cancer. Its lead candidate RIVAL-01 consists of the vaccinia virus backbone encoding three potent immunomodulators, such as Flt3 ligand, anti-CTLA-4 antibody, and IL-12 cytokine designed to work together to drive immune activity and re-program the microenvironment to be best suited for tumor eradication. The company was founded in 2015 and is based in Ottawa, Canada with an additional office in New York, New York.
ARTham Therapeutics Inc
Series A in 2018
ARTham Therapeutics Inc engages in deliver biological medicines. The company offers programs including art-648, art-ep, art-pde and art-001. The company was founded in 2018 and is based in Naka-Ku, Japan.
GammaDelta Therapeutics
Venture Round in 2017
GammaDelta Therapeutics is developing the potential of gamma delta (γδ) cells to create improved immunotherapy of cancer and other serious diseases. The company plans to exploit unique properties of tissue resident γδ T cells for effective immunotherapy.
Adaptate Biotherapeutics
Series A in 2021
Adaptate is a biotherapeutics company that develops antibodies to modulate gamma delta T cells in situ. The company was founded in 2019 by Adrian Hayday and is headquartered in London.
SEEDSUPPLY
Seed Round in 2018
SEEDSUPPLY research and develops medical and agricultural chemical products. The company is a spin-off of Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited and established in May 2017 and is headquartered in Fujisawa, Kanagawa, Japan.
Bridge Medicines LLC
Venture Round in 2016
Bridge Medicines LLC offers drug discovery services. It focuses on developing technologies in academic institutions from human proof-of-concept to clinical development. The company develops inhibitors of ENL-YEATS for the treatment of acute leukemias, such as acute myelogenous leukemia and a series of orally active small molecule inhibitors of activated factor XII for the treatment of hereditary angioedema and other inflammatory disorders. Bridge Medicines LLC was founded in 2016 and is based in New York, New York.
Aspen RxHealth
Series B in 2021
Aspen RxHealth is a service powered by an app-based platform that connects pharmacists with patients in need of enhanced medication services. Its application makes it easy for health plans and providers to connect their patients with an on-demand community of pharmacists who have time and expertise to provide clinical service.
PVP Biologics, Inc.
Venture Round in 2017
PvP Biologics is developing an oral enzyme for the treatment of celiac disease. Our mission is to develop a highly-effective therapeutic product to reduce the burden of living with this disease. Towards this end, we are advancing a product candidate designed to break down the immuno-reactive parts of gluten in the stomach and thereby avoid the painful symptoms and damage done in the small intestine from accidental gluten ingestion.
EvolveImmune Therapeutics
Venture Round in 2020
EvolveImmune Therapeutics transforms the discovery and development of novel immunotherapies. By leveraging its proprietary in vivo target discovery platform, EvolveImmune is building a pipeline of novel therapeutic candidates against numerous targets that are expressed on multiple immune cell types. The company’s platform will generate first-in-class treatments for unmet needs in oncology and autoimmune diseases.
StrideBio, Inc.
Series B in 2021
StrideBio, Inc. creates and develops adeno-associated viral (AAV) vector technologies and therapeutics that enables gene addition, gene silencing, and gene editing modalities for rare diseases. The company develops a proprietary platform by combining structural information with accelerated evolution to create novel AAV capsids that can evade neutralizing antibodies. The company was founded in 2015 and is based in Durham, North Carolina.
ImmPACT Bio USA
Series A in 2020
ImmPACT Bio USA Inc. is a cell therapy company aiming to develop potent and selective engineered T-cells for the treatment of solid tumors. The Company's technology enables targeting loss-of-gene features of solid tumor cells, sparing normal, healthy tissues.
Outpost Medicine, LLC
Series A in 2016
At Outpost, they are committed to developing novel therapeutics for the treatment of gastrointestinal and urologic disorders. The company's lead clinical-stage product candidate is in development for the treatment of overactive bladder (OAB) and irritable bowel syndrome (IBS).
Outpost Medicine, LLC
Series A in 2017
At Outpost, they are committed to developing novel therapeutics for the treatment of gastrointestinal and urologic disorders. The company's lead clinical-stage product candidate is in development for the treatment of overactive bladder (OAB) and irritable bowel syndrome (IBS).
Naurex
Series C in 2014
Naurex Inc. is a clinical-stage company developing novel therapies for depression and other CNS disorders based on a new mechanism of action for modulating the N-methyl-D-aspartic acid receptor (NMDAR). Using these discoveries, Naurex researchers have generated novel chemical drug classes known as glycine-site functional partial agonists (GFPAs), which modulate the receptor in a different way than existing NMDAR agents. The company's drug development programs based on its GFPA NMDAR modulators include the first-generation molecule, GLYX-13, the second-generation NRX-1050 small molecule series and additional compounds from Naurex's platform of novel NMDAR modulators.
Presage Biosciences, Inc.
Convertible Note in 2021
Presage Biosciences, Inc. is an oncology company that incorporates human efficacy data in the drug development and clinical trial processes. It offers CIVO arrayed microinjection platform that allows for simultaneous assessment of multiple drugs or drug combinations directly in a single solid tumor while still in a patient’s body to assess efficacy, resistance, and drug synergies in the tumor’s native microenvironment. The company was founded in 2008 and is based in Seattle, Washington.
Protekt Therapeutics
Venture Round in 2019
ProteKt Therapeutics is a drug development company aiming to develop potent and selective oral inhibitors of the kinase PKR for the treatment of neurodegenerative and neuroinflammatory diseases. The company has raised a $4M pre-A round and graduated from the FutuRx accelerator in 2019.
Cerevance
Series A in 2016
Cerevance is a developer of novel therapeutics intended to advance new medicines for serious neurological diseases.The company's therapeutics applies it's technology called NETSseq to reveal transcriptional and epigenetic differences between specific cell types in mature human brains, enabling healthcare providers to detect and tackle the early onset of various neurological diseases.
Akriveia Therapeutics
Series C in 2021
Xilio Therapeutics is a biotechnology company advancing next-generation cancer immunotherapies designed to improve patient outcomes by unleashing the power of the immune system selectively at the site of the tumor. The company’s tumor-selective immunotherapies are based on its proprietary technology, which maximizes the potency of proven immuno-oncology therapies and restricts their activity to the tumor to minimize peripheral side effects. The broad applicability of these therapies across cancer types means that all patients could benefit from these potentially curative medicines.
These tumor-selective therapies are designed to overcome the significant toxicities associated with validated IO therapies, such as IL-2 and aCTLA4, which have historically limited the number of patients that can be treated and prevented patients from completing full courses of treatment
Xilio Therapeutics proprietary technology enables the explosion of therapeutic activity specifically within the tumor while reducing toxicity throughout the body a nod to the company name, Xilio, derived from the Latin term, Ex Nihilo, meaning creation or big-bang. The company applying its technology to build a broad pipeline of engineered antibodies, cytokines and chemokines as potential new options for people living with cancer.
Xilio Therapeutics was founded in 2016 and is headquartered in Waltham, Massachusetts, United States.
EllieGrid Inc.
Grant in 2016
Elliegrid provides medication management services which helps organize pills, set reminders, and track compliance. The company offers pill-box design and software data analytics solutions which also provide healthcare professionals and caregivers with real-time compliance data of their patients and loved ones, so they can make timely interventions.
Elliegrid was founded by Hieu Nguyen, Regina Vatterott, Nicolas Dhanam, and Abe Matamoros in 2015 and is based in Austin, Texas.
Alnylam Pharmaceuticals
Post in 2011
Alnylam (Nasdaq: ALNY) is the translation of RNA interference (RNAi) into a whole new class of innovative medicines with the potential to transform the lives of people afflicted with rare genetic, cardio-metabolic, hepatic infectious, and central nervous system (CNS)/ocular diseases. Based on Nobel Prize-winning science, RNAi therapeutics represent a powerful, clinically validated approach for the treatment of a wide range of severe and debilitating diseases.
Cerevance
Venture Round in 2018
Cerevance is a developer of novel therapeutics intended to advance new medicines for serious neurological diseases.The company's therapeutics applies it's technology called NETSseq to reveal transcriptional and epigenetic differences between specific cell types in mature human brains, enabling healthcare providers to detect and tackle the early onset of various neurological diseases.
Juventas Therapeutics
Series B in 2012
Juventas Therapeutics, Inc., a clinical stage biotechnology company, develops non-viral gene therapies that activate natural processes to repair the body. The company focuses on treatment of non-healing wounds in patients with advanced peripheral artery disease. It offers JVS-100, a non-viral gene therapy that expresses stromal cell-derived factor-1 or SDF-1, a naturally occurring signaling protein that has been shown to recruit the body’s own stem cells and promote tissue repair in a range of disease states. Juventas Therapeutics, Inc. was formerly known as AcelleRX Therapeutics, Inc. and changed its name to Juventas Therapeutics, Inc. in April 2009. The company was founded in 2007 and is based in Cleveland, Ohio.
Mersana Therapeutics, Inc.
Series C in 2016
Mersana Therapeutics employs its biodegradable polymer platform to create new and better medicines. They are advancing their own clinical-stage pipeline of novel compounds with the potential to address multiple oncology indications.
It was founded in 2005 and headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Encycle Therapeutics
Venture Round in 2015
Encycle Therapeutics, Inc. operates as a biotechnology company that exploits a platform technology that enables the rapid synthesis of drug-like macrocycles or membrane-permeable nacellins. The company is based in Toronto, Canada. As of October 31, 2019, Encycle Therapeutics, Inc. operates as a subsidiary of Zealand Pharma A/S.
Intellikine
Acquisition in 2011
Intellikine works in the discovery and development of novel, small molecule therapies targeting the PI3K/Akt/mTOR pathway.
Intellikine is committed to building an exceptional team and a powerful discovery platform that rapidly generates small molecule kinase inhibitor drug candidates that will become the next generation of medical breakthroughs.
HOOKIPA Pharma Inc.
Series C in 2017
HOOKIPA Pharma Inc., a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company, develops immune-therapeutics targeting infectious diseases and cancers based on its proprietary arenavirus platform. The company’s lead infectious disease product candidate is HB-101, which is in a randomized double-blinded Phase II clinical trial in patients awaiting kidney transplantation from cytomegalovirus-positive donors. Its lead oncology product candidates are HB-201 and HB-202 that are in preclinical studies for the treatment of human papillomavirus-positive cancers. The company has a collaboration with Gilead Sciences, Inc. to develop infectious disease product candidates intended to support functional cures for chronic Hepatitis B virus and human immunodeficiency virus infections. HOOKIPA Pharma Inc. was founded in 2011 and is headquartered in New York, New York.
BioNumerik Pharmaceuticals
Private Equity Round in 2004
BioNumerik Pharmaceuticals, Inc. engages in the discovery, development, and commercialization of drugs that help in the treatment of cancer. The company’s two oncology drug candidates, Tavocept and BNP1350, are in late-stage clinical development. BioNumerik Pharmaceuticals, Inc. was founded in 1992 and is based in San Antonio, Texas.
BIOMx
Series B in 2019
BiomX discovers and develops innovative microbiome therapeutics. The Company's mission is to develop novel therapeutics for preventing and treating diseases in which microbiome imbalances have been implicated. BiomX's microbiome modulation technologies are based on the cutting-edge innovative research of its scientific collaborators: Professor Rotem Sorek, PhD and Dr. Eran Elinav, MD, PhD both of the Weizmann Institute of Science and Professor Timothy K. Lu, MD, PhD of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
ArmaGen Technologies
Series A in 2012
ArmaGen, Inc. is a clinical stage biotechnology company that develops therapies to treat severe neurological diseases. The company focuses on therapies for lysosomal storage, hunter syndrome, hurler syndrome, Sanfilippo A syndrome, metachromatic leukodystrophy, and neurodegenerative diseases. Its product candidates include AGT-182 for hunter syndrome; and AGT-181 for hurler syndrome. The company was formerly known as ArmaGen Technologies, Inc. ArmaGen, Inc. was incorporated in 2001 and is headquartered in San Diego, California.
Inviragen
Acquisition in 2013
Inviragen is focused on developing life-saving vaccines to protect against emerging infectious diseases worldwide. Inviragen's lead product is a vaccine to protect against dengue fever, a disease that threatens 2.5 billion people across the globe. Inviragen is also developing a vaccine to protect against West Nile for the North American market, a nasal combination vaccine to protect against both plague and smallpox for biodefense, and a unique vaccine to protect against avian influenza for global markets.
Receptor Biologix
Series A in 2005
Receptor Biologix develops receptor-based biological therapeutics for cancer, inflammatory, and autoimmune diseases. The company is headquartered in Palo Alto, California.
Cerevance
Series A in 2017
Cerevance is a developer of novel therapeutics intended to advance new medicines for serious neurological diseases.The company's therapeutics applies it's technology called NETSseq to reveal transcriptional and epigenetic differences between specific cell types in mature human brains, enabling healthcare providers to detect and tackle the early onset of various neurological diseases.
Avidity Biosciences
Series C in 2019
Avidity Biosciences, Inc. is pioneering a new class of oligonucleotide-based therapies called AOCs designed to overcome the current limitations of oligonucleotide therapies in order to treat a wide range of serious diseases. Avidity utilizes its proprietary AOC platform to design, engineer and develop therapeutics that combine the tissue selectivity of monoclonal antibodies and the precision of oligonucleotide therapies in order to access previously undruggable tissue and cell types and more effectively target underlying genetic drivers of diseases. Avidity's lead product candidate, AOC 1001, is designed to treat myotonic dystrophy type 1, and its four other muscle programs are focused on the treatment of muscle atrophy, Duchenne muscular dystrophy, facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy and Pompe disease. In addition to its muscle franchise, Avidity has development efforts focused on immune and other cell types.
Palleon Pharmaceuticals
Series B in 2020
Palleon Pharmaceuticals Inc., a biotechnology company, focuses on developing drugs that target glycan-mediated immune regulation to treat cancer and inflammatory diseases. It offers therapeutics to treat cancer and inflammatory diseases. The company also develops drugs for inflammatory diseases, such as autoimmunity and fibrosis. Palleon Pharmaceuticals Inc. was formerly known as Palleon Pharma Inc. and changed its name to Palleon Pharmaceuticals Inc. in February 2017. The company was founded in 2015 and is based in Waltham, Massachusetts.
Catamaran Bio
Series A in 2020
Catamaran Bio, Inc. develops CAR-NK immune cell therapies for the treatment of tumor. The company develops Tailwind platform to engineer, expand, and process NK cells into allogenic CAR-NK cell therapy shelf products. Catamaran Bio, Inc. was incorporated in 2019 and is based in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
VHsquared Ltd.
Series A in 2013
VHsquared Ltd. develops oral biologics for immuno-inflammatory targets in the gastro intestinal tract. The company identifies, screens, selects, and engineers Vorabodies, a transformational therapy for the treatment of inflammatory bowel disease. It uses its Vorabody platform to generate potent protease resistant domain antibodies for oral administration. The company was incorporated in 2010 and is based in Cambridge, United Kingdom.
IDM Pharma
Acquisition in 2009
IDM is focused on the development of innovative cancer products that either destroy cancer cells by activating the immune system or prevent tumor recurrence by triggering a specific adaptive immune response. IDM is dedicated to maximizing the full therapeutic and commercial potential of its innovative products to address the needs of patients and the physicians who treat these patients.
Heptares Therapeutics Ltd.
Series B in 2013
Heptares Therapeutics is a drug discovery company focused on novel small-molecule drugs targeting G-protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs), the largest family of druggable targets.
The Company has developed a unique, transformational and proprietary technology for making purified, stabilised and functional GPCRs (known as StaRs, Stabilised Receptors), overcoming a major limiting factor to the development of new drugs targeting this group.
HOOKIPA Pharma Inc.
Series B in 2016
HOOKIPA Pharma Inc., a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company, develops immune-therapeutics targeting infectious diseases and cancers based on its proprietary arenavirus platform. The company’s lead infectious disease product candidate is HB-101, which is in a randomized double-blinded Phase II clinical trial in patients awaiting kidney transplantation from cytomegalovirus-positive donors. Its lead oncology product candidates are HB-201 and HB-202 that are in preclinical studies for the treatment of human papillomavirus-positive cancers. The company has a collaboration with Gilead Sciences, Inc. to develop infectious disease product candidates intended to support functional cures for chronic Hepatitis B virus and human immunodeficiency virus infections. HOOKIPA Pharma Inc. was founded in 2011 and is headquartered in New York, New York.
Envoy Therapeutics
Series A in 2009
Envoy Therapeutics’ mission is to discover new drugs with superior efficacy and fewer side effects than existing treatments. The company’s bacTRAP® technology enables the identification of proteins in vivo that are produced by specific cell types without requiring the isolation of those cells. The technology is especially powerful in tissues of the brain, where many hundreds of cell types are intermingled. Because therapeutically modulating the activity of a specific cell type has until now been prevented by the inability to determine which proteins are uniquely expressed by that cell type, Envoy brings a new day in drug discovery.
Akriveia Therapeutics
Series B in 2020
Xilio Therapeutics is a biotechnology company advancing next-generation cancer immunotherapies designed to improve patient outcomes by unleashing the power of the immune system selectively at the site of the tumor. The company’s tumor-selective immunotherapies are based on its proprietary technology, which maximizes the potency of proven immuno-oncology therapies and restricts their activity to the tumor to minimize peripheral side effects. The broad applicability of these therapies across cancer types means that all patients could benefit from these potentially curative medicines.
These tumor-selective therapies are designed to overcome the significant toxicities associated with validated IO therapies, such as IL-2 and aCTLA4, which have historically limited the number of patients that can be treated and prevented patients from completing full courses of treatment
Xilio Therapeutics proprietary technology enables the explosion of therapeutic activity specifically within the tumor while reducing toxicity throughout the body a nod to the company name, Xilio, derived from the Latin term, Ex Nihilo, meaning creation or big-bang. The company applying its technology to build a broad pipeline of engineered antibodies, cytokines and chemokines as potential new options for people living with cancer.
Xilio Therapeutics was founded in 2016 and is headquartered in Waltham, Massachusetts, United States.
Aquinnah Pharmaceuticals
Venture Round in 2015
Aquinnah Pharmaceuticals is focused on an exciting new area of research and development to modulate neurodegenerative stress granules, believed to be important in the pathology of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease.
Naurex
Series C in 2014
Naurex Inc. is a clinical-stage company developing novel therapies for depression and other CNS disorders based on a new mechanism of action for modulating the N-methyl-D-aspartic acid receptor (NMDAR). Using these discoveries, Naurex researchers have generated novel chemical drug classes known as glycine-site functional partial agonists (GFPAs), which modulate the receptor in a different way than existing NMDAR agents. The company's drug development programs based on its GFPA NMDAR modulators include the first-generation molecule, GLYX-13, the second-generation NRX-1050 small molecule series and additional compounds from Naurex's platform of novel NMDAR modulators.
Serenex
Series C in 2005
Serenex is a medical drug discovery and development company that focuses on oncology. The company develops Hsp90 product platform that provides a collection of small molecule Hsp90 inhibitors for cancer, inflammatory diseases, fungal infection resistance, viral diseases, and neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer's. It also develops SNX-1012, a product for oral mucositis in solid tumor patients.
Serenex is a U.S.-based company that was founded in 2000 and it was acquired in 2008 by Pfizer.
Ambys Medicines
Series A in 2018
Ambys Medicines is working to fundamentally transform the lives of people suffering from severe liver diseases by creating breakthrough therapies capable of restoring liver function, preventing the progression of liver disease, and treating the devastating complications of liver failure.