Copenhagen-based Orbis Medicines has raised €90 million in a Series A funding round led by NEA, with additional support from Eli Lilly and Company, Cormorant Asset Management, LP, the Export and Investment Fund of Denmark, and existing investors Novo Holdings and Forbion. The funding will be used to develop the company’s pipeline of oral macrocycle drugs, known as “nCycles,” which aim to offer oral alternatives to injectable biologic therapies. These drugs are being developed using Orbis’ nGen platform, a system that combines automated chemistry and machine learning to create and test large libraries of macrocycle candidates. Morten Graugaard, with over two decades of experience in life sciences, has been appointed CEO to lead the company during this next stage of growth.
Orbis Medicines is focused on pioneering a new era for oral macrocycle drug discovery. Macrocycles are a large and diverse family of compounds with highly desirable therapeutic properties but historically have been challenging to develop as oral drugs. Orbis Medicines’ programs are focused on high-value oral alternatives to blockbuster biologic drugs and targets to maximize value for patients.
“The support from this particular group of investors is further validation of the exemplary science and exciting potential of Orbis Medicines. The company is advancing the potential of macrocycles by developing orally available nCycles — a format preferred by patients, physicians and healthcare systems, particularly for chronic diseases,” said Morten Graugaard, newly appointed Orbis CEO. “The interest we have received demonstrates the market appetite for nCycles as an oral approach to both validated biologic targets and targets undruggable by other modalities. We have a clear strategy for rapid value creation that leverages the unique capabilities of our nGen platform and are excited to advance this important new class of drugs for patients.”
nGen is Orbis Medicines’ technology platform for generating nCycles, a new class of fully synthetic macrocycle compounds optimized for oral bioavailability and membrane permeability. It consists of multiple proprietary integrated elements in a “lab in a loop” system starting with hit finding libraries of 100 billion compounds. The highly automated chemistry-based nGen platform can synthesize and analyze up to 100,000 distinct synthetic macrocycles in weeks, allowing the company to discover candidates with the right properties to enable oral dosing and intracellular targeting. The scale and quality of the data produced from these real compounds, paired with machine learning, creates an industry-leading platform that de-risks and accelerates development.
“The Orbis Medicines team has impressed us with the data supporting nGen, which we believe is the world’s leading discovery engine for oral macrocycle drugs. We are thrilled to support not only their journey to the clinic, but also their longer-term vision as a leader in their field,” said Ed Mathers, Partner, NEA. “We congratulate Morten on his appointment as CEO after years of successfully guiding the company as Chair. He brings the depth of knowledge and expertise to lead Orbis through this crucial growth phase and deliver on the potential of nCycles.”
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Read the orginal article: https://arcticstartup.com/orbis-medicines-raises-e90m-series-a/
