Macrolide launches from Harvard with $22m

Macrolide Pharmaceuticals has raised $22m in a series A following it being spun out of Harvard University.

The round was backed by life science investors the Novartis Venture Fund, Gurnet Point Capital, Roche Ventures, and SROne. The financing will allow the firm to expand its drug discovery platform into developing a range of novel antibiotics known as macrolides.

Although the technology, which can be used to treat conditions caused by drug resistant pathogens, has been around since the 1940s, it has been hampered by semisythesis issues. Macrolide’s technology corrects this error, allowing for the developing of many macrolides which could lead to the range of effective antibiotic products.

Initial work to develop the technology was supported by funding from Harvard’s Blavatnik Biomedical Accelerator.

Lawrence Miller, co-founder of Macrolide, said: “[Co-founder] Andy Myers and I are excited to apply this new technology to a highly effective and safe class of antibiotics, the macrolides, where we already have encouraging data in gram-positive and gram-negative species. We believe that we can use this technology platform to develop multiple antibiotic products. We’re delighted to work with a superb group of sophisticated, highly experienced investors in this endeavour.”