Date: 2016-12-12
Type of information: Series A financing round
Company: BlueRock Therapeutics (USA - Canada)
Investors: Bayer Healthcare (Germany) Versant Ventures (USA - CA)
Amount: $ 225 million
Funding type: series A financing round
Planned used: BlueRock Therapeutics is a new regenerative medicine company that plans to develop best-in-class induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) therapies to cure a range of diseases using an industry-leading platform. The company will be led by a world-class team and has assembled its platform through a series of strategic partnerships with academia and industry. The funds are projected to give BlueRock Therapeutics at least four years of runway and will allow the new company to advance a number of programs into the clinic, with an initial focus on cardiovascular diseases and neurodegenerative disorders. One of BlueRock Therapeutics’ initial programs is to regenerate heart muscle in patients who have had a heart attack (myocard infarction, MI) or are suffering from chronic heart failure. The program is being advanced in collaboration with the Toronto-based McEwen Centre for Regenerative Medicine and University Health Network (UHN) including Dr. Gordon Keller, who is a world leader in stem cell biology and a scientific co-founder of BlueRock Therapeutics, and Dr. Michael A. Laflamme, who is a cardiac cell therapy pioneer and founding investigator of BlueRock Therapeutics. The goal of the program is to restore the electrical and contractile function of injured hearts through remuscularization with pluripotent stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes. Integral to BlueRock Therapeutics' formation is a wide-ranging strategic partnership with Memorial Sloan Kettering, Dr. Lorenz Studer, a scientific co-founder of BlueRock Therapeutics and 2015 MacArthur Genius Award winner, and Viviane Tabar, neuro surgeon and founding investigator of BlueRock Therapeutics, to advance stem cell therapy programs that address various neurological diseases with high unmet need. Dr. Studer, a world leader in the field of developing neurons from stem cells has pioneered large scale production of dopamine neurons and his research has led to important breakthroughs that show the potential to directly treat PD through replacement therapy with functional, stem cell-derived, dopamine-producing neurons. The manufacturing platform at BlueRock Therapeutics will be enabled by a partnership with the Toronto-based CCRM, a leader in developing and commercializing regenerative medicine technologies, and cell and gene therapies. CCRM has developed technologies and expertise to support robust and scalable GMP production of various stem cell types for cellular therapeutics. The basis for the overall approach is iPSC intellectual property (IP) invented by Nobel Prize winner Dr. Shinya Yamanaka of Kyoto University and licensed from iPS Academia Japan Inc., which manages iPSC IP. This foundational IP will allow the company to create iPSCs, which will be an important cell source. BlueRock Therapeutics will have research and development operations in Toronto, New York and Boston that will allow the company to benefit from its international and cross-border partnerships.
Others: * On December 12, 2016, Bayer AG and Versant Ventures announced the launch of BlueRock Therapeutics, a next-generation regenerative medicine company that plans to develop best-in-class induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) therapies to cure a range of diseases using an industry-leading platform. BlueRock Therapeutics is focused on breakthrough treatments based on latest stem cell technology in combination with superior cell differentiation protocols. BlueRock Therapeutics’ vision is to cure diseases with significant cell loss and diminished self-repair potential with an initial focus on cardiovascular, neurological and other conditions. The BlueRock Therapeutics Board of Directors will be comprised initially by Dr. Brad Bolzon and Dr. Jerel Davis representing Versant Ventures and Dr. Juergen Eckhardt and Dr. Axel Bouchon, head of the Bayer Lifescience Center (BLSC), representing Bayer. BlueRock Therapeutics is the second large investment by the Bayer Lifescience Center BLSC, which operates as a strategic innovation unit in Bayer directly reporting to Bayer’s Board of Management. The BLSC has the mission to uncover, encourage and unlock fundamental scientific breakthroughs in medicine and agriculture more rapidly by enabling innovative partnerships and new company creation with best-in-class biotechnology companies or academia. In December 2015, the BLSC formed a joint venture - Casebia - with CRISPR Therapeutics AG, a gene editing company co-founded by Versant.
Therapeutic area: Cardiovascular diseases - Neurodegenerative diseases
