A drugmaker launched just this year has already received a big load of money from venture capitalists.
Gossamer Bio said Monday that it had raised $230 million in a Series B funding round, led by Hillhouse Capital. The company announced its launch on Jan. 4, with a $100 million Series A round led by ARCH Venture Partners and Omega Funds. ARCH and Omega also participated in the Series B round, along with new investors the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, Invus, the Baupost Group and Polaris Partners.
The company was founded by former Receptos executives Faheem Hasnain and Sheila Gujrathi. Hasnain, who had been CEO, has been appointed as executive chairman, while Gujrathi is replacing him as CEO.
The San Diego-based company plans to focus its developments on discovery, development and commercialization of immunology-based therapeutics for autoimmune diseases, allergy and inflammation and oncology.
The company’s pipeline page lists four drug candidates, GB001, GB002, GB003 and GB004, with GB001 in Phase II clinical development. GB001’s studies are in undisclosed indications, while the Phase I asset GB004 is a HIF-1alpha stabilizer being developed for inflammatory bowel disease. GB003 is in preclinical development, and GB002 is in Phase I. ClinicalTrials.gov lists Gossamer Bio as the sponsor for one study, a Phase Ia trial of an inhaled drug called PK10571, with Pulmokine as a collaborator. The double-blind, placebo-controlled study is enrolling 64 healthy adults.
CFO Bryan Giraudo said in a phone interview that Gossamer and Pulmokine are partnered on the drug’s development and that PK10571 is the same as one of Gossamer’s pipeline-listed drug candidates, though for competitive reasons he could not confirm which. Rensselaer, New York-based Pulmokine’s primary therapeutic focus is pulmonary hypertension, according to its website.
A Deep-dive Into Specialty Pharma
A specialty drug is a class of prescription medications used to treat complex, chronic or rare medical conditions. Although this classification was originally intended to define the treatment of rare, also termed “orphan” diseases, affecting fewer than 200,000 people in the US, more recently, specialty drugs have emerged as the cornerstone of treatment for chronic and complex diseases such as cancer, autoimmune conditions, diabetes, hepatitis C, and HIV/AIDS.
The first half of this year saw a significant boost in Series A funding rounds for biotech companies, totaling $2.6 billion, compared with $2.3 billion for the entirety of 2017. Gossamer’s goal, Giraudo said, is to carry multiple assets into late-stage development, with plans to start Phase IIb and Phase III trials next year. That level of drug development can be expensive, hence the large size of the company’s Series A and Series B rounds, he said.
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