21
October 2024
PureTech Health plc
PureTech Founded Entity
Seaport Therapeutics Closes $225 Million Oversubscribed
Series B Financing Round
Financing led by General
Atlantic with participation from other top tier
investors
Proceeds will support key
clinical milestones in Seaport's pipeline of first and
best-in-class neuropsychiatric medicines
PureTech Health plc
(Nasdaq: PRTC, LSE: PRTC) ("PureTech" or the
"Company"), a clinical-stage
biotherapeutics company, noted that its Founded Entity,
Seaport
Therapeutics, ("Seaport") a
biopharmaceutical company that is advancing novel neuropsychiatric
medicines with a proven strategy and team, today announced the
closing of an oversubscribed $225 million Series B financing round.
The syndicate was led by General Atlantic, a leading global growth
investor, 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 also participated. Following the
Series B financing, PureTech will hold equity ownership in Seaport
of 36.7% on a diluted basis.
The financing brings the total
capital raised by Seaport to $325 million since the Company's
launch in April 2024. Seaport will use the proceeds to advance its
clinical-stage pipeline of first and best-in-class medicines
through important clinical milestones as well as further advance
the capabilities of the Glyph™ technology platform, which has
demonstrated clinical proof-of-concept. The programs in Seaport's
pipeline use the Glyph platform, which is designed to enable and
enhance oral bioavailability, avoid first-pass metabolism and
reduce liver enzyme elevations or hepatotoxicity and other side
effects to advance clinically active drugs that were previously
hindered by those limitations.
Commenting on today's announcement,
Bharatt Chowrira, PhD, JD, Chief Executive Officer of PureTech and
a member of the Seaport Board of Directors, said:
"We're very pleased with Seaport's
$225 million Series B financing. Led by a syndicate of top-tier
investors, this milestone highlights the significant progress we're
making across our portfolio. The strong support from this stellar
investor group not only reinforces the value generated by our
unique R&D engine but also underscores our commitment to
advancing transformative therapies for patients. As we look ahead
to the upcoming data readout for our internal LYT-100
(deupirfenidone) program, we're excited to continue driving
innovation across our portfolio with the goal of delivering
impactful treatments that address significant medical
needs."
The full text of the announcement
from Seaport is as follows:
Seaport Therapeutics Closes
$225 Million Oversubscribed Series B Financing
Round
Financing led by
General Atlantic with participation from T. Rowe Price Associates,
Foresite Capital, Invus, Goldman Sachs Alternatives, Canada Pension
Plan Investment Board (CPP Investments) as well as other new
investors
Founding investors ARCH
Venture Partners, Sofinnova Investments, Third Rock Ventures, and
PureTech Health also participated
Proceeds will support key
clinical milestones in Seaport's pipeline of first and
best-in-class neuropsychiatric medicines
BOSTON, October 21, 2024 - Seaport Therapeutics ("Seaport"), a clinical-stage
biopharmaceutical company that is advancing novel neuropsychiatric
medicines with a proven strategy and team, today announced the
closing of an oversubscribed $225 million Series B financing round.
The syndicate was led by General Atlantic, a leading global growth
investor, 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 financing brings the total
capital raised by Seaport to $325 million since the company's
launch in April 2024. Seaport will use the proceeds to advance its
clinical-stage pipeline of first and best-in-class medicines
through important clinical milestones as well as further advance
the capabilities of the Glyph™ technology platform, which has
demonstrated clinical proof-of-concept.
"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," said Daphne Zohar, Founder and CEO of Seaport
Therapeutics. "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."
"We are excited to partner with
Daphne Zohar, Steve Paul and the team at Seaport," said Brett Zbar,
M.D., Managing Director and Global Head of Life Sciences at General
Atlantic. "We are impressed with the team's outstanding CNS
clinical track record, as well as Seaport's Glyph platform and
innovative pipeline. The approach to clinical development and trial
design demonstrates the deep neuropsychiatric expertise around the
table, which we believe offers unique advantages that will
contribute to Seaport's success. We look forward to supporting the
company's next phase of development."
The programs in Seaport's pipeline
use the Glyph platform, which is designed to enable and enhance
oral bioavailability, avoid first-pass metabolism and reduce liver
enzyme elevations or hepatotoxicity and other side effects to
advance clinically active drugs that were previously hindered by
those limitations. The most advanced therapeutic candidate in the
pipeline is SPT-300, an oral prodrug of allopregnanolone that is
being advanced into a Phase 2b study for major depressive disorder
with or without anxious distress that has the potential to be
registration-enabling. Allopregnanolone is an endogenous
neurosteroid with clinically validated rapid anti-depressant and
anxiolytic activity, and SPT-300 retains this activity in an oral
form.
"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," said Steve Paul, M.D., Founder
and Board Chair at Seaport Therapeutics. "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."
SPT-320, a novel prodrug of
agomelatine being advanced into Phase 1 studies for the treatment
of generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), has the potential to be the
first new mechanism for GAD in decades. SPT-320 uses Glyph to
bypass liver first-pass metabolism and thus has the potential to
lower the dose and reduce liver exposure while retaining
efficacious systemic exposure of agomelatine that has been
validated in multiple clinical studies in GAD. The reduction in
dose has the potential to eliminate the need for liver function
monitoring that has previously held back agomelatine's development
in GAD. SPT-348, a prodrug of a non-hallucinogenic
neuroplastogen in development for the treatment of mood and other
neuropsychiatric disorders, uses Glyph to create a potential
first-in-class treatment. Beyond these programs, Seaport has
multiple discovery and preclinical programs underway.
About the Glyph™ Platform
Glyph is Seaport's proprietary
technology platform which uses the lymphatic system to enable and
enhance the oral administration of drugs. With the Glyph platform,
drugs are absorbed like dietary fats through the intestinal
lymphatic system and transported into circulation. The Glyph
platform has the potential to be widely applied to many therapeutic
molecules that have high first-pass metabolism leading to low
bioavailability and/or side effects, including liver enzyme
elevations or hepatotoxicity. Seaport exclusively licensed this
technology from Monash University based on the pioneering research
of the Porter Research Group. Advanced initially at PureTech Health
and now at Seaport, Glyph has been applied to create therapeutic
candidates for the company's pipeline resulting in new intellectual
property, including composition of matter. The group and its
collaborators have published research in Nature
Metabolism, Frontiers in
Pharmacology and
the Journal
of Controlled Release supporting
the Glyph platform's capabilities. See Glyph in action
here.
About Seaport Therapeutics
Seaport Therapeutics is a
clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company advancing the development
of novel neuropsychiatric medicines in areas of high unmet patient
needs. The company has a proven strategy of advancing clinically
validated mechanisms previously held back by limitations that are
overcome with its proprietary Glyph technology platform. All
the therapeutic candidates in its pipeline of first and
best-in-class medicines are based on the Glyph platform, which is
uniquely designed to enable oral bioavailability, bypass first-pass
metabolism and reduce liver enzyme elevations or hepatotoxicity and
other side effects. Seaport is led by an experienced team that
invented and advanced important neuropsychiatric medicines and are
guided by an extensive network of renowned scientists, clinicians
and key opinion leaders. For more information, please
visit www.seaporttx.com.
Ownership Information
PureTech contributed $14.4 million to
the Series B financing and now holds equity ownership in Seaport of
36.7 percent on a diluted basis.
Additionally, as the founder of Seaport, PureTech
has a right to royalty payments on a percentage of net sales of any
commercialized product as well as the right under the terms of the
license agreement with Seaport to receive milestone payments upon
the achievement of certain regulatory approvals and a percentage of
sublicense income.
About PureTech Health
PureTech is a clinical-stage
biotherapeutics company dedicated to giving life to new classes of
medicine to change the lives of patients with devastating diseases.
The Company has created a broad and deep pipeline through its
experienced research and development team and its extensive network
of scientists, clinicians and industry leaders that is being
advanced both internally and through its Founded Entities.
PureTech's R&D engine has resulted in the development of 29
therapeutics and therapeutic candidates, including three that have
been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. A number of
these programs are being advanced by PureTech or its Founded
Entities in various indications and stages of clinical development,
including registration enabling studies. All of the underlying
programs and platforms that resulted in this pipeline of
therapeutic candidates were initially identified or discovered and
then advanced by the PureTech team through key validation
points.
For more information, visit
www.puretechhealth.com
or connect with us on X (formerly Twitter)
@puretechh.
Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking
Statements
This press release contains
statements that are or may be forward-looking statements within the
meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995.
All statements contained in this press release that do not relate
to matters of historical fact should be considered forward-looking
statements, including without limitation those related to
additional milestones or royalties potentially due to
PureTech, Seaport's development plans for
its pipeline of therapeutics for the treatment of depression,
anxiety and other neuropsychiatric disorders, potential benefits to
patients, the anticipated use of proceeds from the Series B
financing and Seaport's and our future prospects, developments and
strategies. The forward-looking statements
are based on current expectations and are subject to known and
unknown risks, uncertainties and other important factors that could
cause actual results, performance and achievements to differ
materially from current expectations, including, but not limited
to, those risks, uncertainties and other important factors
described under the caption "Risk Factors" in our Annual Report on
Form 20-F for the year ended December 31, 2023, filed with the SEC
and in our other regulatory filings. These forward-looking
statements are based on assumptions regarding the present and
future business strategies of the Company and the environment in
which it will operate in the future. Each forward-looking statement
speaks only as at the date of this press release. Except as
required by law and regulatory requirements, we disclaim any
obligation to update or revise these forward-looking statements,
whether as a result of new information, future events or
otherwise.
Contact:
PureTech
Public Relations
publicrelations@puretechhealth.com
Investor Relations
IR@puretechhealth.com
UK/EU Media
Ben Atwell, Rob Winder
+44 (0) 20 3727 1000
puretech@fticonsulting.com
US
Media
Justin Chen
+1-609-578-7230
jchen@tenbridgecommunications.com