Visterra Closes $30 Million Series B Financing to Advance Pipeline of Multiple Products for Infectious Diseases

Visterra, Inc., has completed a $30 million Series B financing round. The proceeds will be used to advance the development of multiple product candidates from the company’s pipeline of novel monoclonal antibodies that target infectious diseases, including VIS410 for seasonal and pandemic influenza and VIS513 for dengue fever, into the clinic.

The Series B financing round was co-led by new Visterra investors, Merck Research Labs Venture Fund, Vertex Venture Holdings Ltd. and Temasek. Existing investors — Polaris Partners, Flagship Ventures, Omega Funds and Alexandria Venture Investments — and a new investor, Cycad Group, also participated in this upsized financing.

“We are very pleased with the strong interest in this financing by investors with global healthcare industry experience, which validates Visterra’s remarkable progress in creating a pipeline of game-changing therapeutics that could significantly impact the lives of patients around the world,” said Brian J.G. Pereira, MD, President and CEO of Visterra. “This new financing enables us to accelerate the achievement of our next stage of clinical development milestones, including moving our lead antibody for influenza, VIS410, into phase II clinical trials, as well as advancing our antibody for dengue fever, VIS513, into the clinic.”

Visterra’s proprietary technology is particularly well-suited to address infectious diseases, an area characterized by organisms with complex and evolving properties, including many different forms (polymorphism) and the potential to mutate over time. Visterra’s technology offers a new approach to address the challenges of infectious organisms and their ability to evade host immunological responses or resist treatment by current therapies. Visterra’s pipeline of novel antibodies is engineered to be effective in combating complex infectious diseases with growing global unmet medical needs.

“The proprietary technology that Visterra has developed offers a potentially breakthrough approach to help identify unique disease targets and design therapeutics that could have a significant impact on infectious diseases,” said Janelle R. Anderson, PhD, Managing Director of Merck Research Labs Venture Fund.

“Visterra has assembled the expertise, technology and vision to apply its innovative drug discovery and development platform to create therapeutics that can meet important unmet needs in infectious diseases, including global health needs outside of the US,” said Lincoln Chee, MD, Venture Partner of Vertex Venture Holdings Ltd.