SutroVax Inc, a biopharmaceutical company dedicated to the delivery of superior and novel vaccines designed to prevent or treat some of the most common and deadly infectious diseases worldwide, today announced the closing of a $110 million Series D preferred stock financing, co-led by new investors RA Capital Management and Janus Henderson Investors. All of SutroVax’s existing institutional investors, including TPG Growth, Abingworth, Longitude Capital, Frazier Health Care Partners, Pivotal bioVenture Partners, Medixci, CTI Life Sciences, Roche Venture Fund, and Foresite Capital also participated in the financing.
“Our primary mission is to deliver the best and most broadly protective vaccines to prevent pneumonia in adults and children. We are delighted to welcome respected life-science investors RA Capital Management and Janus Henderson Investors to join with our syndicate of private equity and venture capital backers, as we work to advance the most broad-spectrum pneumococcal vaccine candidates to the clinic,” said Grant Pickering, CEO and Founder of SutroVax.
SutroVax’s lead vaccine candidate, SVX-24, is a preclinical, 24-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV) that includes 11 incremental strains over and above the 13 in today’s standard of care, Prevnar 13®, including strains responsible for high case-fatality rates, antibiotic resistance and/or meningitis. Preclinical proof of concept studies for SVX-24 evaluating the surrogate immune endpoints used for adults and children demonstrated comparable responses to the 13 common strains in Prevnar 13 and superior responses to the 23 common strains in Pneumovax®23, the non-conjugate polysaccharide-only vaccine. The pneumococcal vaccine class is the industry’s largest, accounting for over $7 billion in annual sales. These SVX-24 preclinical data have been accepted for presentation at the 12th International Symposium on Pneumococci and Pneumococcal Disease (ISPPD-12) anticipated to take place in June 2020.
The SutroVax PCV pipeline also includes SVX-XP, a PCV with an expanded breadth of coverage of at least 30 strains, including newly emerging strains responsible for invasive pneumococcal disease and antibiotic resistance. SutroVax has generated preclinical proof of concept versus the standard of care vaccines and intends to advance SVX-XP into the clinic as a future successor to SVX-24.
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In connection with the Series D financing, Derek DiRocco, Ph.D., from RA Capital Management, and Agustin Mohedas, Ph.D., from Janus Henderson Investors, joined the SutroVax Board of Directors as board observers.
“SutroVax is tackling a significant, growing issue given the threat of pneumococcal disease and other infectious diseases, where new strains are hampering effective preventative measures,” said Dr. DiRocco and Dr. Mohedas in a joint statement. “SutroVax has made significant strides to date, and we look forward to the advancement of its lead candidate into clinical development as well as the expansion of its innovative platform.”
Source: Biospace