The small molecule drug developer, co-founded by a UCLA associate professor, has completed its series B round.
Octant Bio, a US-based small molecule therapeutics developer co-founded by Sri Kosuri, an associate professor at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), has secured $80m in its series B round.
Life sciences investment firm Catalio Capital Management led the round, which also featured pharmaceutical firm Bristol Myers Squibb (BMS), boutique investment bank Allen & Company and venture capital firms 50 Years VC and Andreessen Horowitz, the latter through its Bio Fund.
Octant has developed a drug development technology platform that combines synthetic chemistry and computation to explore proteins and cellular pathways in order to create and engineer therapeutics.
Ramsey Homsany, Octant’s co-founder and president, told Global Corporate Venturing the capital will support the entry of its two lead programmes into clinical trials, in addition to funding the development of other drug candidates and scaling its technology platform.
BMS is investing through a strategic partnership that will involve it applying Octant’s Deep Mutational Scanning technology, which measures the activity of every mutation in specific proteins, to an inflammation-related drug target.
Mike Ellis, head of small molecule drug discovery at BMS, is taking a board observer position at Octant in connection with the round, as is Catalio head of research Diamantis Xylas. George Petrocheilos, co-founder and managing partner of Catalio, is joining its board of directors.
Octant CEO Sri Kosuri is currently on leave from his UCLA associate professor position. The round lifted its overall funding to $115m, the company said.
Octant disclosed $30m of the total when it emerged from stealth in mid-2020. That was secured through a series A round led by Andreessen Horowitz and backed by Allen & Co, 8VC, SV Angel and assorted individuals.
Photo courtesy of Octant Bio.
