Selecta's Series B Adds $15M to Advance Targeted Nanoparticles

(BioWorld Today Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Financings Roundup Founded in late 2007 to develop a technology platform that combines discoveries in immunobiology with advances in nanotechnology, Selecta Biosciences Inc. is ready to start moving its program toward the clinic thanks to a $15.1 million Series B round.

"We were gratified to find a very receptive audience at a very difficult time," said Robert Bratzler, executive chairman of the Watertown, Mass.-based firm. He called the Series B "our first substantial round," following $2.5 million in seed funding in May 2008 from Polaris Venture Partners and Flagship Ventures.

Both of those investors returned for the Series B, joined by NanoDimension, a VC firm that focuses on nanotechnologies, and individual investor Timothy A. Springer, a professor of pathology at Harvard Medical School and previous founder of LeukoSite Inc., which was acquired by Millennium Pharmaceuticals Inc. in 1999.

"I'm pleased with the enormous shareholder value we've created in just a short time," Bratzler said.

Selecta began operations in December 2007, based on the "convergence" of work in two separate areas, he said, with advanced particle technology coming from Robert Langer, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Omid Farokhzad, of Harvard Medical School, and immune system discoveries by Ulrich von Andrian, also of Harvard Medical School.

"We wanted to capitalize on that knowledge" of how the immune system responds to pathogens by combining it with a nanoparticle armed with the "ability to target specific cells within the immune system," Bratzler said. Selecta's immunomodulatory nanoparticles offer a "way to drive immune response in a disease-specific manner." Like other immunomodulatory products in development, the company's platform aims for broad applicability - either stimulating or modulating immune responses to prevent or treat a range of diseases - but the nanoparticle component could provide greater precision in eliciting a specific response against a particular pathogen.

Selecta's nanoparticles are several hundred nanometers in size and are used to deliver "a payload of unique substances," such as antigens or immunostimulants, Bratzler said.

The firm is working on programs both for prophylaxis and for therapeutic indications, with the goal of reaching the clinic with its first product in 2010. Though Selecta has not yet disclosed that initial target, Bratzler said the "preclinical data are very exciting." Proceeds from the Series B will be used to assemble a team for further studies and should take Selecta through initial clinical evaluation of the lead program, he said. The company has "above 10 employees now and is rapidly growing," he added.

Going forward, Selecta anticipates building its business through a combination of strategies, which likely will include moving some pipeline products through development on its own and collaborating with other companies that could "benefit from the platform technology we have here," Bratzler said.

Selecta's board includes Bratzler, Farokhzad and Langer, as well as Douglas Cole, of Flagship Ventures; Amir Nashat, of Polaris; and Aymeric Sallin, of NanoDimension.

In other financings news: ? Hepregen Corp., of Winchester, Mass., was spun out of Battelle Ventures LP with a $5 million Series A investment from Battelle and its Tennessee affiliate, Innovation Valley Partners. The company received the first $3 million last summer, leaving an additional $2 million committed and available at management's request. Hepregen is developing bioengineered solutions for drug development, specifically a model for predicting the liver's response to drugs during the discovery process. The company was founded by Sangeeta Bhatia and Salman Khetani, scientists from Massachusetts Institute of Technology who developed the technology, which Hepregen exclusively has licensed from MIT. The Series A funds are expected to enable the firm to work in partnership with companies and contract research organizations to assess future use of the platform. n ? ? Copyright ? 2009 Thomson BioWorld, All Rights Reserved.

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