Posted: 29 October 2024
The clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company, Seaport Therapeutics, which uses a unique drug delivery platform originally developed by Monash University, has announced the closing of an oversubscribed US$225 million Series B financing round.
The funding syndicate was led by General Atlantic with participation from funds and accounts advised by T. Rowe Price Associates, Inc., Foresite Capital, Invus, Goldman Sachs Alternatives, CPP Investments, and other new investors. Founding investors ARCH Venture Partners, Sofinnova Investments, Third Rock Ventures, and co-founder PureTech Health also participated.
The announcement comes just six months after launching with US$100 million in April 2024, bringing the total capital raised by the Boston-based Seaport to US$325 million.
Seaport will use the proceeds to advance its clinical-stage pipeline of first and best-in-class neuropsychiatric medicines through important clinical milestones as well as further advance the capabilities of the Glyph™ technology platform, which has already demonstrated clinical proof-of-concept.
The Glyph platform was initially developed by Professor Chris Porter and his team at the Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences (MIPS) and is designed to enable and enhance oral bioavailability of clinically active drugs that were previously hindered by limitations, including first-pass metabolism, liver enzyme elevations, hepatotoxicity and other side effects.
Since the licence of the Monash technology was initiated to Seaport’s co-founder PureTech Health in 2017, and now is exclusively licenced to Seaport, Professor Porter and the MIPS team have worked closely with both PureTech and Seaport to progress the platform and advance the development of drug candidates including SPT-300 (formerly known as LYT-300).
SPT-300 is an oral form of the drug allopregnanolone which is being advanced into a Phase 2b clinical trial that has the potential to be registration-enabling for the treatment of major depressive disorder (MDD), with or without anxious distress. Seaport’s pipeline also includes ‘SPT-320’ for generalised anxiety disorder, along with ‘SPT-348’ for mood and neuropsychiatric disorders. See Glyph in action here.
“There have been some exciting developments in the field of neuropsychiatric medicines in recent times, but the need for more effective and accessible options for those living with a broad range of neurological conditions remains. It’s very rewarding to see the ongoing investment and support behind Seaport and the Glyph platform, which is showing great promise in its ability to advance much-needed and potentially life-changing neuropsychiatric medicines,” Professor Porter said.
Founder and CEO of Seaport Therapeutics, Daphne Zohar said “We are grateful to have the partnership of this incredible group of new and existing investors who share our commitment of delivering better medicines for those suffering from depression, anxiety and other neuropsychiatric disorders.”
“Seaport is advancing novel therapeutics that have proven clinical efficacy but had previously been held back by an issue we can now address with our Glyph platform. This financing enables the important clinical work that brings us another step closer to delivering new medicines to make a difference in the lives of patients and their families,” added Zohar.
Steve Paul, M.D., Founder and Board Chair at Seaport Therapeutics concluded: “The development of important new neuropsychiatric medicines is often halted due to poor drug-like properties or unacceptable tolerability, challenges that our Glyph platform can now uniquely address. For instance, xanomeline was an effective drug that faced tolerability challenges, but once resolved, led to the FDA approval of Cobenfy™ (formerly KarXT) for schizophrenia. With Glyph, we believe each of Seaport’s programs could create similar life-changing value for patients.”
In addition to Professor Porter, the team at Monash that initially developed the Glyph technology was led by Associate Professor Natalie Trevaskis and Dr Sifei Han and included Dr Luojuan Hu, Dr Dan Zheng, Dr Nathania Leong, Dr Garima Sharma, Dr Xiaotong Zhou, Dr Enyuan Cao and Dr Mitchell McInerney.
