The investment round, jointly led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2 and RA Capital Management, will advance the company’s small molecule pipeline
Ventus will scale-up its ReSOLVE platform. (Credit: Michal Jarmoluk from Pixabay)
Biotechnology company Ventus Therapeutics has raised $140m in a Series C financing round to advance its drug discovery and development platform, ReSOLVE.
Co-led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2 and RA Capital Management, the funding round saw participation from founding investor Versant Ventures.
Other investors include Qatar Investment Authority, Andreessen Horowitz, BVF Partners, Casdin Capital, Cormorant Asset Management, Fonds de solidarité FTQ, Alexandria Venture Investments, GV, also participated in the investment round.
The biopharmaceutical company has developed the ReSOLVE platform to identify and develop small molecule therapeutics across a wide range of disease indications.
ReSOLVE platform was designed based on the company’s expertise in structural biology and protein science, and its computational chemistry capabilities.
Ventus intends to use the funding to advance the scaling of its ReSOLVE platform which works to address targets previously considered undruggable.
The company will enhance the platform’s performance by automating processes, expanding machine learning capabilities, and building large unique virtual libraries.
Along with the financing, SoftBank Investment Advisers investor John Cassidy will be appointed as a member of Ventus Therapeutics Board of Directors.
Cassidy said: “We believe Ventus’ proprietary computational drug discovery platform makes it quicker and more cost-effective to identify molecular targets from an almost infinite library of compounds.
“We’re pleased to be partnering with the team as they move to clinical testing and unlock novel approaches to curing a wide range of diseases.”
Ventus president and CEO Marcelo Bigal said: “We believe this funding from leading investors will help us scale up our ReSOLVE platform while simultaneously driving towards planned investigational new drug (IND) submissions for our three lead programs in 2023.”
In addition to the ReSOLVE platform, Ventus will continue to advance its lead drug programmes that target key modulators in the innate immune system.
The modulators include NLR pyrin domain-containing 3 (NLRP3) and cyclic GMP-AMP synthase (cGAS) that have been extensively implicated in human disease.
The company is also planning to expand its research and development team to support additional programmes in its pipeline.
Its lead drug programme, VENT-01, is a peripherally restricted small molecule inhibitor compound targeting NLRP3, is a validated target for various inflammatory diseases.
The second programme is a brain-penetrant NLRP3 inhibitor, and the third drug programme targets cGAS, a key regulator of the cGAS/stimulator of interferon genes (STING) pathway.