27 Jan 2020 07:00
Arix Bioscience Plc - Arix co-founds Quench Bio with Series A financingArix Bioscience Plc - Arix co-founds Quench Bio with Series A financing
PR Newswire
London, January 26
Arix Bioscience plc
Arix co-founds Quench Bio with Series A financing
Quench Bio emerges from stealth mode, with Series A financing, bringing total committed funding to $50 million Arix Bioscience and Atlas Venture co-founded and seeded Quench Bio in 2018 Opportunity to develop the first drug targeting Gasdermin D, in the emerging area of innate immunity, which has seen significant high value deal activityLONDON, 27 January 2020: Arix Bioscience plc (“Arix”, LSE: ARIX) a global venture capital company focused on investing in and building breakthrough biotech companies, today announces that its discovery portfolio company Quench Bio has emerged from stealth mode with the completion of a Series A financing. This follows a period of company creation, with seed investment and close involvement by Arix.
Led by a team of drug developers and scientists with deep experience in inflammation and small molecule drug discovery, Quench Bio’s lead therapeutic approach centres on inhibiting the protein Gasdermin D, which has recently been discovered as a key target at the core of multiple inflammatory cell death pathways, including pyroptosis and NETosis. This is at the cutting edge of contemporary drug development and a field of significant commercial interest by big pharma.
The company has built a highly experienced leadership team, led by Chief Executive Officer Samantha Truex, the former Chief Business Officer of Padlock Therapeutics, which was acquired by Bristol Myers Squibb in 2016.
Arix and Atlas Venture co-founded and seeded the company in 2018 along with co-founders Mark Tebbe, Ph.D., Chief Technology Officer, and Mike Nolan, Ph.D., Head of Biology, together with Arturo Zychlinsky and Herbert Waldmann, both Directors at The Max Planck Institute who collaborated with the Lead Discovery Center on inhibitors of NETosis and gasdermin.
In addition to Arix and its co-founding investor Atlas Venture, RA Capital led the Series A and were joined by AbbVie Ventures. Josh Resnick, Managing Director and co-head of Ventures at RA Capital and Adam Houghton, Head of AbbVie Ventures will join the board, alongside existing directors Jonathan Tobin of Arix Bioscience and Bruce Booth of Atlas Venture. Additionally, Arix’s John Cassidy will continue his role as Board Observer.
Jonathan Tobin, Investment Director at Arix and Board Director of Quench Bio, commented: “We are excited and privileged to work alongside such a distinguished team of entrepreneurs and co-investors to develop first-in-class medicines that could make a major difference to patients suffering from chronic inflammatory and auto-immune diseases. The genesis of Quench originated from our long-standing relationship with the Lead Discovery Center in Germany and its close connections with the Max Planck Society. It exemplifies the advantage of Arix’s transatlantic approach, combining the best of European and US science and talent.”
Samantha Truex, Chief Executive Officer of Quench Bio, commented: “The successful financing underscores the potential of our innovative approach. We are delighted by the strong support from Arix as well as our existing and new investors and I look forward to leveraging their extensive experience as we develop multiple programs to target severe inflammatory diseases.”
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Enquiries
For more information, please contact:
Arix Bioscience plc
Charlotte Parry, Head of Investor Relations
+44 (0)20 7290 1072
charlotte@arixbioscience.com
Optimum Strategic Communications
Mary Clark, Supriya Mathur
+44 (0)20 3950 9144
optimum.arix@optimumcomms.com
About Arix Bioscience plc
Arix Bioscience plc is a global venture capital company focused on investing in and building breakthrough biotech companies around cutting edge advances in life sciences.
We collaborate with exceptional entrepreneurs and provide the capital, expertise and global networks to help accelerate their ideas into important new treatments for patients. As a listed company, we are able to bring this exciting growth phase of our industry to a broader range of investors.
www.arixbioscience.com
About Quench Bio
Quench Bio is a biotechnology company leveraging new insights into gasdermin biology and innate immunity to develop medicines for severe inflammatory diseases. Quench’s lead compounds target and inhibit the pore-forming protein Gasdermin D, a central player in both pyroptosis and NETosis pathways that mediates the release of inflammatory cytokines, alarmins, DNA and NETs. Quench Bio launched in January 2020 with $50 million from leading life science investors including Atlas Venture, Arix Bioscience, RA Capital and AbbVie Ventures. To learn more, visit please visit www.quenchbio.com