Bay Area vaccine upstart SutroVax just wrapped a $22 million Series A round for a series of inoculations against infectious disease.
As a spinout of Sutro Biopharma, a biotech focused on antibody drug conjugate work, SutroVax will focus on conjugate vaccines. It’ll meld bits of viruses or bacteria with chemical poisons targeted at killing the pathogens specifically – an approach that’s become quite common in cancer therapy.
One popular conjugate vaccine is Pfizer’s Prevnar, a pneumococcal prophylactic that has revenues of $846 million – an 80 percent increase over the year previous. Such vaccines are commanding a large stake in the booming vaccine market, which is projected to grow to $58 billion by 2019. SutroVax says the conjugate vaccine market is currently $8 billion, with the pneumococcus portion at about $6 billion.
When Investment Rhymes with Canada
Canada has a proud history of achievement in the areas of science and technology, and the field of biomanufacturing and life sciences is no exception.
The company won’t disclose what indications it’s currently chasing, but that it wants to improve upon existing bacterial vaccines – so it’s safe to assume it’s after the pneumococcal market as well.
The deal was led by Abingworth; other investors are Longitude Capital, Roche Venture Fund and CTI Life Sciences Fund. It’ll use the funding to push several vaccines through preclinical proof-of-concept.
