Seaport Therapeutics, the biopharma developing new neuropsychiatric medicines, has closed a US$225m series B funding round.
The financing brings the total capital raised by Seaport to US$325m since its launch in April.
The programmes in Seaport’s pipeline use its “Glyph” platform, designed to help advance clinically active drugs that were previously hindered by their potential side effects.
The most advanced therapeutic candidate in the pipeline is SPT-300, an oral version of the drug allopregnanolone being advanced into a study for major depressive disorder.
Its funding round was led by General Atlantic, a global growth investor, with participation from funds and accounts advised by T. Rowe Price Associates, 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.
Daphne Zohar, founder and CEO of Seaport Therapeutics, 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.”
SPT-320 has the potential to be the first new mechanism for generalided anxiety disorder (GAD) in decades.
It uses Glyph to bypass liver first-pass metabolism and thus has the potential to lower the dose and reduce liver exposure while retaining efficacy 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.
Beyond these programs, Seaport has multiple discovery and preclinical programs underway.
