CAMBRIDGE, Mass. & CAMBRIDGE, England--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Transition Bio, Inc., a microfluidics-driven drug discovery platform company using biophysical sciences and artificial intelligence tools to map and modulate biomolecular condensates, today announced its $50 million Series A financing, led by Northpond Ventures and joined by Taiho Ventures, Bristol Myers Squibb and Magnetic Ventures. Lifeforce Capital, the lead investor from the Company’s seed financing, also participated and was joined by other existing seed investors.
“We are excited to have such a high-quality group of investors alongside us as we apply and expand our one-of-a-kind predictive approach to analyzing and modulating biomolecular condensates,” said Greg Miller, chief executive officer of Transition Bio. “The technology and tools we have built – and the data we are generating – are unmatched in capability and scale, and the pace and depth of our progress across all areas of the company has been extraordinary. Our team is uniquely suited to harness the fundamental and largely untapped biology of condensates which is at the center of many disease pathways.”
The capital raised will accelerate the progress made to date with the Company’s novel Condensomics™ platform. This platform utilizes microfluidics to drive high-throughput generation of proprietary data to enable machine learning-guided condensate target identification and drug discovery. The funding allows rapid expansion of the technology by scaling up the platform and translating the science across a variety of targets and disease areas.
In addition, Shilpi Arora, Ph.D., joined Transition Bio as senior vice president of discovery research and brings extensive experience in leading multiple aspects of drug discovery, target identification and validation, pharmacology and translational sciences from previous roles in both academia and the biotech industry. Prior to joining Transition Bio, Shilpi was vice president of discovery and translational biology at Exo Therapeutics and previously held roles at X-Chem Pharmaceuticals, Constellation Pharmaceuticals and the Translational Genomics Research Institute.
Transition Bio also announced updates to its board of directors. Shaan C. Gandhi, M.D., D.Phil., director and head of the biotechnologies group at Northpond Ventures, has been appointed to the Company’s board. In addition, Alfred W. Sandrock, Jr., M.D., Ph.D., chief executive officer of Voyager Therapeutics and former head of research and development at Biogen, has been appointed to the board as an independent director. Co-founders Kelly Martin and Samuel Cohen, Ph.D., will continue to serve on the board as executive chairman and director, respectively.
“The Northpond team has been engaging with condensate biology for a long time. The encouraging data and caliber of people involved drive our collaboration with Transition Bio,” said Dr. Gandhi. “The experience and creativity of the founders, management team and scientists, as well as the progress with the platform, convince us that Transition Bio will develop therapeutic approaches that will address significant unmet medical needs.”
“The right tools are essential to translate this evolving biological space into meaningful therapeutics. I have been impressed with the Transition Bio team’s methodical and thoughtful approach to rapidly identify small molecules which can impact an expanse of human diseases,” commented Dr. Sandrock.
“On behalf of the founders, we are delighted and amazed by how far the team has come in such a short period of time,” said Mr. Martin. “This financing is a testament both to the underlying scientific foundation, created through the tremendous work and innovation of Dave Weitz and Tuomas Knowles over the past decade, as well as to the talented team of dedicated and enthusiastic professionals working with us in the U.S., U.K. and beyond. In addition, we welcome Al and Shaan to the board and look forward to benefiting from their unique skills and experiences.”
Transition Bio launched in September 2020 with a seed round led by Lifeforce Capital.
About Transition Bio
Transition Bio is a microfluidics-driven drug discovery platform company working to establish a one-of-a-kind technology platform to revolutionize condensate drug discovery. With a physics-first approach that enables proprietary data generation that in turn maps condensate behavior on an unprecedented scale, we aim to be the leading technology and data-driven company in the new and rapidly expanding field of condensate cell biology. Our founders and world-class team integrate the latest advances in the fields of physics, chemistry, biology and machine learning to harness the potential of biomolecular condensates to solve some of today’s most fundamental challenges in health and disease.
