Avitide, Inc. Secures Series A Financing to Commercialize Novel Biopharmaceutical Affinity Purification Technology

LEBANON, N.H. --(Business Wire)--

Avitide, Inc., a biotech company dedicated to the discovery and development of custom affinity purification solutions for the biopharmaceutical industry, announced the closing of their Series A financing. The Avitide technology is designed to discover and develop affinity purification products that will improve the fundamental timeframes and economics of commercial bioprocessing.

The financing was led by Borealis Ventures with participation from SV Life Sciences, Polaris Venture Partners, OrbiMed Advisors, and Angeli Parvi. Managing Partners Phil Ferneau (Borealis Ventures) and Michael Ross (SV Life Sciences) joined Avitide's Board of Directors. The proceeds from this financing will enable the further development of Avitide's custom affinity purification platform and continued commercial development of low cost and high capacity affinity resins for monoclonal antibodies, therapeutic proteins, and recombinant vaccines.

"The Avitide team has pioneered an elegant and cost effective solution to a problem that bioprocess engineers have wrestled with for some time: 'How does one selectively purify therapeutic proteins at scale without having to go through multiple chromatography steps and without requiring an affinity resin based on recombinant proteins ' The Avitide technology enables rapid development of highly selective chromatography resins via chemical synthesis which are not based on costly recombinant proteins. This will have a large impact on commercial bioprocessing," said Prof Tillman Gerngross, Co-founder of Avitide. "We can offer our partners a new standard in speed to delivery of customer-defined affinity purification products, allowing them to achieve unparalleled development timelines while obtaining a highly purified product in a single step," added Kevin Isett, Avitide's Co-founder and CEO.

"The technology is based on one of those insights that is so fundamentally powerful it seems obvious now that someone has done it," commented Mike Ross (News - Alert), Ph.D. (Managing Partner, SV Life Sciences). "The Avitide team just did an outstanding job of identifying a key bottleneck in bioprocessing and addressing i with a practical and cost effective solution."

Avitide is led by a team with substantial relevant expertise and a track record of success in bioprocessing and in commercializing innovation. Avitide's founders include: Tillman Gerngross, Co-founder and CEO of Adimab, Co-founder and President of Arsanis, Co-founder and CSO of GlycoFi (a wholly-owned subsidiary of Merck & Co since 2006), and Professor of Engineering at Dartmouth College; Errik Anderson, Co-founder and COO of Adimab, and Co-founder and Board Member of Arsanis; Kevin Isett, Head of High-throughput Manufacturing at Adimab, and Sr. Biochemical Engineer at Merck Bioprocess R&D Warren Kett, Co-founder and CTO of Glycan Biosciences; and Jonathan Sheller, Director Finance & Operations for Arsanis, and Founder of Bedrock Ventures.

"The combination of a high caliber team that knows how to deliver real value to biopharma customers, world-class science, and an innovative business model make this a compelling investment opportunity", said Phil Ferneau from Borealis Ventures.

Avitide will initiate operations in Lebanon, New Hampshire. "We evaluated several business locations in the northeast US, and it quickly became apparent that the growing entrepreneurial nexus near Dartmouth College offered an outstanding combination of talented engineers and scientists, a strong entrepreneurial network, and the financial and operational resources needed to be successful. We are very excited that Avitide will join this emerging biotech community," stated Isett.

ABOUT BOREALIS VENTURES

Borealis Ventures partners closely with exceptional entrepreneurs from the earliest stages to build market-defining companies in the life sciences and information technology sectors. Borealis has been the most active venture investor in New Hampshire over the past decade, and its latest fund, the Borealis Granite Fund, is the first venture capital fund dedicated to NH-based opportunities.

ABOUT SV LIFE SCIENCES

SV Life Sciences is a leading international life sciences venture capital firm. The SVLS team manages five private venture capital funds with approximately $2 billion of capital under management. The firm employs a diversified strategy within life sciences in order to selectively capitalize on an expanding opportunity in biotech, medical devices and health-care services.

ABOUT POLARIS VENTURE PARTNERS

Polaris Venture Partners is a partnership of experienced private equity investors, operating executives and entrepreneurs. The firm's mission is to identify, invest in and partner with seed, early stage, and middle market businesses with exceptional promise and help them grow into market-leading companies. The firm has over $3.5 billion under management, more than 20 investment professionals, and current investments in more than 100 companies.

ABOUT ORBIMED ADVISORS

OrbiMed is the world's largest life sciences and healthcare-dedicated investment firm, with approximately $6 billion in assets under management. OrbiMed has successfully invested in over 140 companies across a wide range of therapeutic categories and stages of development. OrbiMed's investment team includes approximately 60 experienced professionals with backgrounds in science, medicine, industry, finance and law. OrbiMed's professionals work together using a collaborative, team-oriented approach to support our portfolio companies, which has earned OrbiMed a reputation as a capital provider of choice for life sciences companies of all stages.

ABOUT AVITIDE, INC.

Avitide develops customized biopharmaceutical affinity purification products. The Avitide platform reduces bioprocess development timelines, program risk, and cost of manufacture by providing turnkey, cost-effective, highly specific affinity purification solutions. Industry-leading affinity resin discovery timelines integrate seamlessly into process development cycles, providing improved line-of-sight, platform operations and equipment, and predictable scalability. For more information, contact info@avitide.com.