WOBURN, MASSACHUSSETTS – Biotech startup, Frequency Therapeutics, announced earlier this month that it has closed $42 million in Series B financing. The latest funding round for the company, which is seeking to create a new class of drugs based on small molecule stimulation of dormant stem cells within the body, brings the total capital raised to $87 million.
According to Frequency Therapeutics, FX-322 is the company’s lead Progenitor Cell Activation (PCA) candidate for hearing restoration and is described as a “proprietary combination of small molecules designed to transiently activate inner ear progenitor cells and enable the creation of new inner ear hair cells in the cochlea.”
“Our team is highly motivated to make a positive impact for the hundreds of millions of men and women worldwide who experience sensorineural hearing loss. This significant financial support from a strong global syndicate as well as our existing investors allows us to advance our lead hearing program into Phase 2 studies in 2019.”
–David Lucchino, Frequency President and CEO
Proceeds from the financing will support the advancement of the company’s clinical candidate, FX-322, for hearing regeneration. The company said top-line results from the ongoing Phase 1/2 study are expected to be announced in the first half of 2019.
The financing will also support the continued expansion of Frequency’s pipeline with new therapeutic applications from the company’s proprietary PCA Regeneration platform.
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Funding Hearing Loss Treatment Research & Development
According to the announcement, the financing was led by biotech and healthcare focused venture firms, Taiwania Capital Management and Axil Capital. Yonjin Capital and DF Investments were also new investors in the Series B financing. Existing investors, including Polaris Founders Capital, Alexandria Venture Investments, CoBro Ventures, Korea Investment Partners and Emigrant Capital also participated in the latest financing round.
The company also announced that Joel Marcus, Executive Chairman and Founder of Alexandria Real Estate Equities, Inc. and Alexandria Venture Investments, and Michael Huang, Managing Partner of Taiwania Capital Management, have joined Frequency’s Board of Directors. In addition, Fred Shane, a partner with Axil Capital and Daguang Wang Ph.D., Managing Director of Yonjin Capital, have joined the board as observers.
“CoBro Ventures is very pleased with Frequency’s progress since our initial involvement in 2015. The core breakthroughs of MIT Institute Professor Robert S. Langer, Sc.D. and Jeff Karp, Ph.D. from Harvard Medical School, provide a very strong scientific bedrock on which we are building Frequency’s pipeline of PCA candidates”
–Marc Cohen, Executive Chairman, Frequency Therapeutics
Source: Frequency Therapeutics
