ITBMed secures $67m equity transplant

ITBMed, a Sweden-based immunomodulation therapy developer with ties to Columbia and Harvard universities, has closed a round sized at up to $67m led by private investor Pablo Legorreta.

ITBMed is researching immunomodulatory drugs for organ transplant patients to improve their quality of life and reduce the likelihood of long-term complications.

The company’s lead asset is a drug called Siplizumab that has been shown to mitigate the need for immunosuppression, a means used to constrain the transplant recipient’s immune system so that it does not reject the incoming organ’s antigens as foreign.

Siplizumab has successfully complete a phase 2 trial. The cash will support further research on therapies for transplant patients.

Pablo Legorreta, founder of life science-focused investment firm Royalty Pharma, will join the ITBMed board of directors.

ITBMed’s founding research was led by chief technology officer and co-founder David Sachs, professor of surgery in the Center for Translational Immunology at Columbia University, professor emeritus at Harvard Medical School and director of Transplantation Biology Research Center Laboratories at Massachusetts General Hospital.

Sachs co-founded the company with David Berglund, associate professor of immunology at Uppsala University, and Erik Berglund, who first studied at Uppsala before undertaking post-doc studies at Columbia. David Berglund now serves as chief scientific officer, while Erik Berglund is CEO.

Legorreta said: “While significant progress has been made in organ transplantation, rejection remains a long-term problem.

“A large unmet medical need remains due to the significant negative health consequences of long-term immunosuppression and the transplant rejection that often occurs despite the use of immunosuppressants.”

“ITBMed’s treatment can effectively address this large unmet need, potentially providing patients with the same quality of life as a healthy person.”