Scout Bio, a Philadelphia, PA-based biotechnology company focused on innovating pet medicine by delivering a pipeline of one-time therapeutics for major chronic pet health conditions, raised $20m in Series B financing.
The round was co-led by Digitalis Ventures’ Companion Fund and RiverVest Venture Partners, and was joined by new investor GreenSpring Associates as well as existing investors Frazier Healthcare Partners, Adage Capital Management and Correlation Ventures. In conjunction with the financing, Nancy Hong of RiverVest Ventures, Cindy Cole of Digitalis Ventures, and Aditya Kohli of Frazier Healthcare Partners will join the board alongside existing directors Mark Heffernan, Tachi Yamada, and Patrick Heron.
The company intends to use the funds to advance its pipeline and expand clinical and other operations.
Led by Mark Heffernan, Ph.D., Chief Executive Officer, Scout is advancing a number of programs across chronic kidney disease, chronic pain and the inflammatory skin condition atopic dermatitis. The company’s approach is to deliver long-term expression of therapeutic proteins in pet patients using adeno-associated viral (AAV) vector technology, administered through a single intramuscular injection.
Scout Bio has entered into an AAV animal health research and development collaboration with the Gene Therapy Program (GTP) at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania (Penn), led by Jim Wilson, M.D., Ph.D, a Scout scientific advisor and co-founder. The GTP has been a global leader in gene therapy research and vector discovery and development for nearly three decades. Through a separate license agreement between Scout and Penn, Scout is granted exclusive worldwide rights to multiple AAV-based veterinary product candidates and associated AAV technologies for animal health.
FinSMEs
10/04/2019