A Watertown biotech company received $20 million in funding to developing targeted antigen-specific immune therapies for maladies such as gout.
Selecta Biosciences Inc., a clinical stage biotechnology, received the money from new and existing investors.
“Severe gout is a highly debilitating disease and just one of the potential therapeutic applications of our proprietary Synthetic Vaccine Particle (SVP) platform,” said Werner Cautreels, President and CEO of Selecta. “With a well established development path and favorable pro forma economics, SEL-212 is a great opportunity. SEL-212 is just the beginning for us, as we have identified many biopharmaceuticals, including existing and new classes of biologics such as gene therapy, where the effects of anti-drug antibodies are deleterious.”
The company has offices at 480 Arsenal St. in Watertown and in Russia. The company’s areas of interest include vaccines and immunotherapies including rare diseases, autoimmunity, allergies, transplantation, cancer, infections, and respiratory disease, according to the company’s website.
Selecta has obtained a total of $78.6 Million in private equity funding to date, including the latest $20 million. Selecta is backed by top-tier venture investors, including Polaris Venture Partners, Flagship Ventures, OrbiMed Advisors, NanoDimension, Rusnano, I2BF, Eminent Venture Capital and Leukon Investments, according to the story story on heraldonline.com.