Good day. About a year ago Jo Viney agreed to sell a biotechnology company she co-founded, Pandion Therapeutics Inc., to Merck & Co. for $1.85 billion. Now, she has raised $101 million in venture capital for a new biotech she leads, Seismic Therapeutic Inc.

Dr. Viney is an immunologist who broke into biotech with companies like Genentech, Immunex Corp., and Amgen Inc. Pandion, where she was president and chief scientific officer, began operations in 2017, went public in 2020, and agreed to be acquired in February 2021. Pandion’s lead drug was designed to treat autoimmune diseases by stimulating the body’s ability to regulate immune responses.

As chief executive of Watertown, Mass.-based Seismic she is taking a different tack, using machine learning to devise novel protein drugs for autoimmune conditions.

Biotech companies are increasingly turning to AI to speed drug discovery. Seismic’s approach involves using its algorithms to help it identify amino acids that can be used to build protein therapies with ideal characteristics, according to Dr. Viney. 

Seismic intends to use this Series A financing, from investors including Lightspeed Venture Partners, Polaris Partners, and Timothy Springer, a Seismic founder and professor at Harvard Medical School and Boston Children’s Hospital, to move its initial drugs toward clinical trials.

And now on to the news...

Antiviral drugs. Altesa BioSciences Inc., a biotechnology startup headed by a former Trump administration official who oversaw U.S. Covid-19 testing, has raised seed financing to develop drugs for viral diseases, WSJ Pro’s Brian Gormley and Laura Cooper report. 

• Dr. Brett Giroir, former U.S. assistant secretary for health, has become chief executive of Altesa, an Atlanta-based company that in January raised a $4 million venture-capital financing led by Pitango Venture Capital. Altesa formed in late 2020 to develop treatments for viral diseases affecting patients in the U.S. and globally.
   
• Currently, there are a limited number of antivirals available to treat respiratory diseases, which present challenges for drugmakers. Clinical trials are often difficult because of the challenge of definitively diagnosing diseases and because many illnesses are quickly self-resolving.  But Covid-19 has drawn more attention to respiratory viruses and spurred advances.
   
• Diagnostic technologies have been improving, making it increasingly possible to identify patients for antiviral drugs, said Dr. Giroir, who was a member of the White House coronavirus task force and national lead for testing and diagnostics.

U.S. regulators are poised to tap the brakes on approving dozens of cancer drugs and other new medicines developed in China, The Wall Street Journal’s Peter Loftus reports. The regulators have expressed concerns about the quality of studies largely conducted in China and whether the results can apply to patients in the U.S. The shift threatens to halt the plans of Western drugmakers, including Eli Lilly & Co. and Novartis AG, who were eyeing billions of dollars in sales from bringing the Chinese medicines to the U.S. It could also raise a new source of tension between the two countries.

Exits

DNA sequencing platform developer Element Biosciences acquired peer company Loop Genomics for an undisclosed amount. Last year, San Diego-based Element Biosciences raised a $276 million Series C round from investors including Janus Henderson Investors, Meritech Capital Partners and Venrock. Loop Genomics, of San Jose, Calif., was backed by Khosla Ventures, Fusion Fund, DN Capital, Y Combinator and Wisemont Capital.

ModMed, a Warburg Pincus-backed provider of electronic health records, practice management and revenue cycle management services for physicians, acquired patient communication and collaboration platform Klara for an undisclosed sum. Klara previously raised funding from investors including Gradient Ventures, Frist Cressey Ventures, FirstMark Capital, Lerer Hippeau and Project A.

Thirty Madison, which offers services for hair loss, migraines, allergies and gastrointestinal conditions through separate websites, and Nurx Inc., a female-focused digital healthcare provider, have agreed to merge under the Thirty Madison brand. Last year, New York-based Thirty Madison said it raised a $140 million Series C round from investors including HealthQuest Capital, Polaris Partners, Northzone, Greycroft and Bracket Capital. Nurx has raised $110 million in funding from Comcast Ventures, Union Square Ventures, Kleiner Perkins and others.

Ventus Therapeutics Inc., a Waltham, Mass.- and Montreal-based startup developing treatments for autoimmune diseases, inflammatory diseases and cancer, closed a $140 million Series C round. SoftBank Vision Fund 2 and RA Capital Management co-led the funding, which included participation from Qatar Investment Authority, Andreessen Horowitz, BVF Partners, Casdin Capital, Cormorant Asset Management, Fonds de solidarité FTQ, Alexandria Venture Investments, GV and Versant Ventures.

Endeavor BioMedicines, a San Diego-based startup focused on precision treatments for terminal conditions including cancer and fibrosis, completed a $101 million Series B round led by Ally Bridge Group and Avidity Partners. New investors including Perceptive Advisors, Piper Heartland Healthcare Capital and Revelation Partners also participated in the funding, along with previous backers Omega Funds and Longitude Capital. Ally Bridge Group’s Andrew Lam and Avidity Partners’ Monal Mehta will join Endeavor’s board.

Congruence Therapeutics, a Montreal-based startup focused on developing novel small molecules for diseases of protein misfolding, landed $50 million in Series A funding. Amplitude Ventures and Fonds de solidarité FTQ led the round, which included additional support from Lumira Ventures, Investissement Quebec, OrbiMed Advisors, Driehaus Capital Management and others. Alongside the investment, the company appointed Kenneth J. Valenzano as chief scientific officer. He was most recently senior vice president of drug discovery at Amicus Therapeutics.

Scopio Labs, a Tel Aviv-based technology platform for digitizing, quantifying and analyzing hematology and other digital cytology samples, picked up a $50 million Series C investment from OurCrowd, Aurum Ventures and others.

HealthCare.com, a health insurance platform headquartered in New York and Miami, added $31.5 million in new funding from Hildred Capital Management, bringing the round total to $211.5 million. Oaktree Capital Management led the Series C round, which saw additional participation from AXIS Capital, Second Alpha and Link Ventures. Hildred’s David Solomon joined the company’s board.

Ada Health GmbH, a Berlin-based health assessment and care navigation provider, added $30 million in Series B funding from Farallon Capital, Red River West and Bertelsmann Investments to close the round at $120 million. Investors including Leaps by Bayer, Vitruvian Partners, Inteligo Bank, F4 and Mutschler Ventures participated in the initial Series B tranche last year.

Day Zero Diagnostics Inc., a Boston-based startup developing a diagnostic system for bloodstream infections, secured a $21 million funding round. Led by Sands Capital, the investment included contributions from Becton Dickinson & Co., Panacea Venture, Hongkou Capital, Triventures and Golden Seeds. Brooke Story, president of integrated diagnostic solutions at BD, will join the board.

Two precision oncology companies, Imagia Cybernetics and Canexia Health, merged and raised 20 million Canadian dollars (about $16 million) from investors including BDC Capital’s Women in Technology Venture Fund and Desjardins Capital.

Boston Technology Research Corp., a Chelsea, Mass.-based regulatory technology company serving healthcare and life sciences companies, grabbed $15 million in Series A funding. Lead investor Insight Partners was joined by LRVHealth, NewStack Ventures and others in the round.

Expressable, an Austin, Texas-based virtual speech therapy startup, gathered a $15 million Series A round. Led by F-Prime Capital, the investment included participation from Lerer Hippeau, NextView Ventures and Amplifyher Ventures.

Curve Health, a senior-care provider, snagged $12 million in Series A funding. Morningside Ventures led the investment, which included support from Alumni Ventures, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Inflect Health, Correlation Ventures, Rosecliff Venture Partners and Kapor Capital.

Mindstate Design Labs, a Pittsburgh-based startup developing psychedelic-inspired therapeutics for mental health conditions, launched out of stealth with $11.5 million in seed funding. Initialized Capital led the round, which included participation from investors including Metaplanet Holdings, Negev Capital, Day One Ventures, K50 Ventures and Page One Ventures.

Epicore Biosystems Inc., a Cambridge, Mass.-based developer of wearable devices that provide personalized hydration and metabolic monitoring, closed a $10 million Series A round from Chevron Technology Ventures, Alumni Ventures, Joyance Partners and others.

• CVS expects sales boost from Covid-19 to wane
   
• Pfizer forecasts $54 billion in 2022 sales from its Covid-19 vaccine, treatment
   
• Does exposure to Omicron help our immunity, even if we don’t get sick?
   
• Judges weigh more Biden vaccine-mandate cases after Supreme Court rulings

• Heads up and eyes wide open (Life Sci VC)
   
• Biotech rout leaves drug startups grounded as demand slumps for IPOs (BioPharma Dive)
   
• Using economics to inform public-health policy (New England Journal of Medicine)
   
• The fall of Eric Lander and the end of science’s ‘big ego’ era (STAT News)

This newsletter was compiled by Brian Gormley, Matthew Strozier and Zachary Cole.

WSJ Pro Venture Capital is a premium service of The Wall Street Journal. We cover venture capital and the global startup ecosystem. Share your tips, comments and questions: vcnews@wsj.com

The Team: Matthew Strozier, Yuliya Chernova, Brian Gormley and Marc Vartabedian.

Follow us on Twitter: @wsjvc, @ychernova, @BrianPGormley, @marcvarta.